FamilySearch - Record Search and Indexing

This is "old" news but Shirley Richison Fields, the coordinator of the Indiana Marriage Indexing project (being done in conjunction with FamilySearch) spoke at the monthly meeting of the Genealogical Society of Whitley County on June 21st. She went through the process of signing up for the project and did a great job of demonstrating the process of downloading a batch and doing the actual indexing. I signed up in February but have only indexed a little over a hundred images so far but am planning to get back to it in the near future. It only takes 30-45 minutes per batch at most. I see this as an opportunity to "pay back" all those who have helped me in the past and contribute something as well.

There have been a few glitches, such as indexers catching up with the images, and arbitrators not keeping up with the indexers but so far there have been more than 250,000 records indexed!

At the link above there is a "Roll of Honor" listing the volunteers who have either indexed or arbitrated more that 5,000 records. There is also a table of statistics showing how many records have been indexed and arbitrated since the project began in late December 2006.

If you don't want to work on the Indiana Marriages, there is a list of other projects at FamilySearch Indexing. Some of the projects, like the Indiana Marriages, you have to sign up for the specific project, but others are "open" and you can work on any of them if you sign up through FamilySearch.

Speaking of FamilySearch, I signed up with the FamilySearch Labs Record Search pilot program yesterday morning. You can read about this opportunity at Dear Mytrle where I first read about it. Just as I was about to retire for the night last night I checked my email. Lo and behold, there was a message from FamilySearch Labs with instructions on how to sign in and access the Record Search area. Of course I had to check it out and take the challenge they give you. I'm not sure how much we're supposed to talk about this, but I will say this - WOW! Everything is so quick. The images I looked at appeared onscreen fast (compared to some other sites) and it was really easy to navigate through a series of images. This is going to be an AMAZING resource! Three hours later, about 2 a.m. this morning, I finally decided to go to bed. It's a good thing that I don't have to go to work anymore!

Updated at 7:35 p.m. Tuesday 06/26: The "confidentiality" clause included with the initial email from FamilySearch for the Record Search Pilot Program has been "sort of" lifted according to Dear Myrtle. She has a comprehensive posting on how the Record Search site works and what information is available. She nailed it! I had so much fun playing with it Sunday night. I did have an issue with saving the images but reported it immediately and then first thing Monday morning had an email from FamilySearch stating they were looking into the problem. As Myrt said, if they can make it so you can copy/paste the full transcription, that will make it even more awesome. Thanks Myrt!

Wow! FamilySearch can't keep up with the Indexers!

I haven't had time to do any indexing for the IGS Indiana Marriages project on FamilySearch for a few days and when I logged on this evening the following message had been posted last Friday, February 16th, by Shirley Fields, the coordinator of the project for the Indiana Genealogical Society:

Hi Indexers,

It's your fault there are no indexing batches available! You indexed so much faster than GSU anticipated, they haven't been able to keep up with you. They have lots more batches and records to be indexed but they are not ready yet. They are trying to speed the process on their end now that they realize how enthused and fast you are, but we will have a bit of a pause here while they catch up. The A batches are all out right now, but as they are completed, they will available as B batches so keep checking back periodically. Arbitrators still have plenty of batches available as that work lags behind the indexing.Thank you for the terrific effort you have put forth in the first 15 days of February, indexing over 25,000 records -- that's an average of 1,600+ records per day! Fantastic!

That's in addition to the 10,000+ records that were done in January. Still no batches available today for indexing. I fell a bit short of my personal goal of a batch a day, more like one every other day, but that's okay, I feel like I've contributed a little bit anyway.

FamilySearch Indexing of Indiana Marriages

On Monday, January 29th I signed up with FamilySearch Indexing to help with the Indiana Marriages project. My contribution to date has been minor, 6 batches and 70 names indexed so far. My personal goal is to complete a batch a day. The amount of time to complete a batch has varied from 15 to 45 minutes, depending upon whether it's the marriage records or the marriage applications I work on. You never know what county the records will be from and some of the records are definitely more challenging than others. Sometimes it is a matter of interpretation as well as transcription. That's where the arbitration comes in. Two people separately index each of the records and a third person compares them and if there are differences, the arbitrator decides which is most correct.

Shirley Richison Fields, the IGS coordinator for the Indiana Marriages project reported that in the month of January, the first full month, there were 9,117 records indexed and 2,019 were arbitrated. There were 1,063 records done in December (the project began on December 22, 2006) so the total so far is 10,180 records! [bwNote: I'm not sure if this is the number of names that has been submitted or the actual number of records that has been indexed. Each record would have 2 names. The number of records per batch varies.] As of the end of January there were indexers signed up from Canada and Japan as well as 23 of the 50 states.

This would be a great opportunity to give back to the genealogical community. To learn more or to sign up for the Indiana Marriages projects go to the Indiana Genealogical Society website. More information on this and other indexing projects can be found at the FamilySearch Indexing website.