The online genealogical community is all abuzz about several big things--two happening this weekend and one now less than 3 months away. I'm talking about RootsTech (a big genealogical/technology conference in its second year, which streams keynotes and other sessions!), the premier of the 3rd season of Who Do You Think You Are? (tonight's episode features Martin Sheen--perhaps we'll gain some insight into Charlie?), and the release of the 1940 census. And, I just heard yesterday that fold3 is making all of its African American records free this month.
This week, in honor of the upcoming release of the census, I decided to talk about the importance and ease of indexing. Of course, when the 1940 census is finally released it won't be indexed at first. However, an army of volunteer indexers will get to work right away, so that finding our ancestors will be just as easy as it is for the 1930 census. I like indexing because I feel like I'm making a positive contribution to genealogical progress and it doesn't cost me money, I can do it in short bursts, and it makes me feel good. Besides, it's EASY, and you kind of feel like you're seeing stuff that others haven't seen yet. Like you're an insider.
Follow me beyond the puffy orange cloud to see what indexing records at family search looks like for yourself.
Genealogy & Family History Community
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Leave the blood feuds at home
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1. To get started you're going to have to download the indexing client for your computer. They even have a version that runs on a mac! Once that is downloaded, you'll run the software and be prompted to enter your family search account info or set up a new account. It's pretty straight-forward.
2. Once you're logged in with your new account info you'll see this...
3. When you're ready to index you want to download a batch. The default is to only show the FS prioritized collections, shown here.
Meh, nothing jumps out at me. But, I like to see all of the collections (image below) they're working on before deciding what to do. Notice that there are different levels of difficulty--from beginning to advanced. They also have a point system. You accumulate so many points for the data you enter. I'm not sure what good the points are, but if you're into that, someone keeps track for you. (You can see it at the bottom of the first image)
4. I decided to go with the Ohio tax collection. I usually decide based on my familiarity with an area or connection to it--I have Ohio peeps, as I know many others in this group do as well. It's an intermediate level indexing project, and I downloaded one set of records. Here is a picture of the indexing window.
At the top is the image you're indexing, in this case some tax rolls from Ohio. The bottom left is the data entry area (which can look like a form or a table), and the bottom right gives you some directions/help/access to the quality checker (more on this in a bit). It's like entering stuff in a spreadsheet.
The first thing you do is enter the header information, in this case I had to say that the image was "normal," meaning I could read it, the scan was good, etc. Then it was on to indexing the people on the rolls.
5. Then you start to enter the people's names. The forms (bottom left) are already set up, based on the data collection you're working on, so, they know the kind of data you're encountering and provide you with the fields on the page. You can also choose to display them as a form, or as a table (how I have it displayed in the images). What they don't know ahead of time is how many records will be on a page, so you have to add them as you go (button second from right on lower 1/3 of screen). In addition to the names, I also had to record the name of the township (Ravenna for all) and the year, which was nowhere to be found, so I left it blank (the instruct you to check on the pages in front and behind yours, which I did).
6. Once you've entered all of the names on the page, you look at the quality checker. It evaluates what you've entered and points out where it thinks you've made mistakes. In the image below, you'll see that William Jr. is highlighted in red.
Quality checker is telling me that William and Jr need to be separated. The instructions explain that Jr should be in the titles or terms column/field.
7. Then you submit your indexing after you've accepted/changed all of the QC's issues. It takes a few moments to upload.
Huzzah! And the whole thing only took me about 10 minutes to do, and I helped 10-20 person's families find them in the tax records.
And if I still haven't convinced you that it's easy, you can take a test drive.
And with that, I open the thread to discussion. I will not be around between 9:30 & 12:30 Pacific as I've got to do something with the 3-year-old that came up, but I'll be around before and after.
Who are you looking for in the 1940 census? Have you ever indexed? What records are you searching through that you wish were indexed? Any breakthroughs lately? Are you going to watch Who Do You Think You Are? What star would you most like profiled?