Monday, April 27, 2020

The 7-Day Indexing Challenge


Are you participating in the 7-Day Indexing Challenge at FamilySearch to index one batch a day?  I index on Sunday afternoons but I appreciate this challenge because it encourages me to index every day.  One batch doesn't take long and I think of it as one small way I can give back for all the documents I've found at FamilySearch at no cost to me.

The past few days I've been indexing Arizona birth records but in the past I've indexed Civil War and other military records, immigration records, death records, U.S. Census records, among others. 

If you haven't indexed before and wonder what it's about or how it looks, here's a screenshot of the birth records I was indexing today.  These appeared to be part of an index compiled by the county to make the records easier to find in their volumes of birth records.  They were all in alphabetical order.


On the right is the information to be indexed.  On the left are the pieces of specific information to be typed in as found on the card.  For this record that included:  given and surname of infant; sex (if on the original record); birth month, day, and year; location; father's given and surnames; mother's given and surnames.

It took so little time to complete the five cards in this batch that I indexed four more batches.  Some batches are harder and take more time.  Some records are not typed, in which case we have to read handwriting.  And sometimes the batches have more than five records.

There are instructions with helpful images to explain the project and near the box for every response I type there is a little round question mark.  When I click on that it gives me information for about specific response.

If you get a batch that you feel you just can't do, you can always return it, no questions asked.

I extend to you the challenge to index.  Will you accept?

–Nancy.

Copyright ©2020, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 

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2 comments:

  1. As a retired librarian, the project sounds so worthwhile to me. I just might give it a try.

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    Replies
    1. I hope you will give it a try, Virginia. It's really worthwhile. If you haven't indexed before try a simple one just to learn the program and how it works. Usually you can look at the project instructions and that will show you the kinds of documents you'll be indexing. I suspect that you have plenty of experience reading old handwriting so even the harder projects probably won't be hard for you. It's just getting used to the program to make that end of it easier.

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