Indexing

I guess I had just never looked carefull at the sites before but this weekend I discovered that you can volunteer and do indexing of records for both Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.com.  Maybe it's just the geek (and librarian?) in me that finds this so exciting!  And there's a small part of me, the one that's been looking at indexed documents to build my source files on my family tree and thinking "How on earth could someone have transcribed that information so poorly?", that is sure I can do better.  At any rate, I'm at least willing to give it a try.

I looked at all the projects FamilySearch had going, paying particular attention to what might be available for Iowa.  I was thrilled to note that the available projects included the 1940 US Federal Census for the state.  I downloaded the necessary software, all set to spend some of my Sunday indexing. Unfortunately, when I tried to install the downloaded  indexing software from FamilySearch, I couldn't get the installer to work.  Every time I tried to run it, it would go so far and then give me a white square with a red x in it and my only option was to click OK.  I fired off an email to them for assistance and then went over to Ancestry.com to see if they also used volunteers for indexing.

Sure enough, when I looked more closely under the Collaborate tab, I found out that they do.  I downloaded the necessary software (not a hitch with the downloading or installation of this one), read some help files, and then went to select a project to download a batch of files from.  Ancestry.com doesn't have as many open projects going as Family Search seems to (and none of the available were related to Iowa), so I picked United States, Spanish American War Volunteers, 1899-1927 and downloaded my first batch of records to transcribe.  This project is actually extremely easy, consisting of transcribing (or "keying" as they call it), the rank (and any other prefixes), first and surname, company, and regiment (might have those terms a little off since I don't have it available here on this computer), the state, and any aliases (mostly just variations in given or surname) for the individual.  Each record only contains one individual and a batch contains 10 records, so it moves very quickly.

I admit that I felt a thrill when I submitted my first batch of keyed records.  Who knows, maybe someday I'll find out that one of my relatives served in this war by searching the dataset once it's completely indexed.  I love the idea that I'm helping make valuable resources, the things that let us investigate and build the stories of the lives of our ancestors.  Again, I'm not sure if that's just my inner geek peeking through or the my inner (and outer) librarian rejoicing in the advancement of research resources!

After I'd done a few sets from the Spanish American war project, I decided I'd be daring and selected the "Select a project for me" link and let Ancestry determine what project I'd get a batch of records from.  The next thing I knew, I had a batch of records from the Kansas City and County Census, 1919 - 1978 before me.  Looking at these images, I immediately took back every negative thing I'd ever thought about someone transcribing census data and getting it wrong.  Because these records were *much* more difficult to read than the Spanish American war records had been.  Mostly due to the quality of the scanned images.  Luckily, the software allows you to do some manipulation of brightness and contrast, which helped in that regard.  Handwriting is another issue altogether!

I had already been known to comment that they should have made anyone who was going to do census enumeration take (and pass!) a handwriting exam.  Working with this batch of records did not change my opinion on that one whit!  Still, I reviewed the available information on reading handwriting and ventured forth.  As opposed to my Spanish American war records, each record in this set contained up to 20 lines with names and information to key in.  I hung in there and before I knew it, I'd completed all ten of my records for the township of Langdon, county of Reno, state of Kansas, from the 1 of March, 1948 (which I totally couldn't make out the ending year on the date and only discovered after I'd submitted my records that I'd dated them all wrong by using 1945 as the date).  Which is one reason why every record set is keyed by two different people and then goes through the arbitration process.

This morning, I was thrilled to discover that I had an email addressing the issue I had with the FamilySearch installation.  I followed the included instructions (essentially, I just needed to run the installer as administrator) and the installation went off without a hitch.  I then watched the introductory video that was available and read the indexing guidelines.  I have downloaded my first set of records (for the 1940 US Federal Census for Iowa) but had to leave for work before I'd had a chance to do more than transcribe the first line of the record.

So now I will be balancing my own researching with providing volunteer indexing at the above two sites.  I admit, I'm looking forward to having my records go through arbitration so I can see how accurate I am and where I need to improve!