Organize Your Family History

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Help others (and yourself) by indexing

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When the self-isolation around the COVID-19 crisis started, I jotted down some things I might do to occupy my time. I was inspired at RootsTech to volunteer to index once again for Family Search (I hadn’t done it since the 2017 Worldwide Indexing Event) so I added indexing to my list. This past week, I gave it a try.

Family Search makes it so easy to volunteer to index. I logged in, selected Indexing from the top menu bar, then Find a Project. I focused on the United States (there are plenty of opportunities in other countries as well), then selected “US, Michigan–Naturalization Records, 1837-1933.” I did a thorough reading of the instructions and indexed a batch. I only did it for a short while that day, but I plan to go back to it this weekend.

If you’re getting a little tired of your own research, this might be a nice change of pace. As someone who has benefited from the volunteer indexing efforts of others, it feels nice to contribute. And here’s a bonus: Indexing might make you a better researcher!

How indexing might make me a better genealogist

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I participated in the Worldwide Indexing Event this past weekend. I’m so glad I did! I’m really grateful to Family Search for making it so easy.

By all appearances, the Worldwide Indexing Event was a big success. Almost 80,000 people participated and 7.2 million records were indexed. I indexed 541 of those records.

I ended up working at the intermediate level, indexing school censuses from Oklahoma schools in the first few decades of the 20th century. These were handwritten cards, each listing a parent and that parent’s children’s names, birth dates and ages. It was fun seeing the names and the birth dates of these kids–some of these families were large!

As I indexed, I realized that I was gaining new insights that would help me in my own genealogy research. I think seeing the challenges of interpreting handwriting, as well as the sloppiness of some of the enumerators, will help me come up with creative searches when I can’t find an ancestor in an index.

Being an indexer also made me realize how easy it is for mistakes to be made. Family Search makes indexing really easy, but if I hadn’t double-checked my work, many August birth dates would have been recorded as April. And a few boys with names like Marion would have been indexed as girls. I’m glad there are arbitrators checking the work, but now when I see errors in an index, I’m going to have a better understanding of how that happened.

Now that I’ve dipped my toe in the indexing pool, I’m going to try to do some indexing for Family Search on a regular basis. If you haven’t tried it, I encourage you to give it a try. Just go to FamilySearch.org, log in, and click Indexing at the top of the screen.

Join the Worldwide Indexing Event this weekend!

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I just learned about Family Search’s Worldwide Indexing Event, October 20 to 22. People from all over the world will work together to index as many documents as possible this weekend. So far, almost 60,000 people (including me!) have signed up.

I’ve long wanted to help with indexing since I know how helpful it is to find indexed documents and I’m so grateful to Family Search for making these documents (and indexes) freely available. A few years ago, I tried to volunteer to index but at the time it required downloading software and the indexing software–despite my best efforts and calls to tech support–simply would not play nicely with my Mac.

Things have changed! One can now index via the web, so no software is required.

Before committing, I thought I’d give it a try. I searched the available indexing opportunities and indicated I was interested in beginner level batches in the United States. I selected Divorce Records from Colorado, 1900-1939. The instructions and the indexing form were clear and I quickly indexed my first batch of ten divorce documents. I’ll hold off until Friday to do more, but I found the process enjoyable. Some day soon, perhaps, I’ll graduate to more challenging documents (these divorce records were typewritten), but I’m setting myself up for success by at least starting out with beginner documents this weekend.

I can’t wait to learn how many documents are indexed this weekend. Think of all the genealogy researchers who will be helped. I’m excited to be a part of it!

Family Search seeking volunteer indexers

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Family Search needs indexersWhen I was at Roots Tech, I was struck by the generosity of genealogists.  One of the things I was inspired to do while there was to sign up as an indexer for FamilySearch.org. The patient staffer at their booth took me through the sign up process and I was on my way.

Indexes make records searchable. The reason that you’re able to do an online search on a name at Family Search or Ancestry or any other genealogy website is that humans have gone through documents, like Census records, and marriage and death records and entered the information on them into a database, which often requires deciphering handwriting. When we search, we’re searching the index. At Roots Tech, Family Search was recruiting volunteers to help index obituaries, but they’re needed for all sorts of records.

Family Search’s indexing is a project of mammoth proportions. In 2014 alone, over 111,000 volunteers have completed some 33 million records, with another 14 records awaiting arbitration. (Each record is indexed by two different volunteers and when their results don’t match, a trained arbitrator decides which is right.)

That’s a whole lot of work–and Family Search relies on volunteers to do that work. You can do it from the comfort of your home and know that you’re contributing to the research of others. You may learn further your own research while you’re at it! If you sign up, you’ll be required to download some software onto your computer and once that’s done and you’ve taken a tutorial or two, you can get started.

For more information and to sign up, go the the Family Search Indexing page.

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When you first join the list, I’ll send you a few emails to help you organize your family history. After that you’ll hear from me at the end of every month when I send an email with links to that month’s posts. And every now and then, I’ll let you know when I have something special to promote.