FamilySearch Indexing Update

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

3 October 2008 Over 29 million new names were posted this past week on the FamilySearch Record Search pilot. Kudos to the FamilySearch volunteer indexers for their monumental contributions! The chart below lists the current indexing projects and their completion status. Volunteers can help any time by registering or downloading a current project at www.familysearch.org (click on Index Records>Volunteer or Start Indexing) or www.familysearchindexing.org. Project Spotlight: United Kingdom, Cheshire Poor Law

The United Kingdom, Cheshire Poor Law indexing project is currently 82% complete. We would like to finish this project by the end of next week, 10 October 2008. If volunteers have time to donate before October 10th, try doing at least a batch or two (or more) from this project. (To download a batch from a specific project, click the Download From… button in the My Work section of the indexing application’s start page, select the project from the list, and click Download.) The Cheshire project includes several types of records kept by the workhouses in Cheshire County, including the Chester Union Workhouse at Hoole, from 1848-1967. Some of the poor in the community would go to the workhouses for only a short time. Some ended up spending the rest of their lives there. We are indexing birth and baptism records, death and burial records, admission registers, and creed registers. The information gathered depends upon the record type and includes the names of those admitted, admission dates, religion, names of children, names of parents, birth dates, baptism dates, names of the deceased, death and burial dates. These are not all of the Poor Law records but a significant portion of them. It is estimated that these records include 500,000 names. [The population of Cheshire County during the time period of these records is uncertain, but the population in 2001 was 673,781—so a significant portion of the community is represented in these records.] Current Projects, Record Language, and Percent Completion Status Alabama - 1920 US Federal Census, English - 1920, 79% complete
Argentina Censo 1869 - Buenos Aires, Spanish - 1869, 66% complete
Brandenburg Kirchenbücher, German - 1789-1875, 8% complete
California - 1920 US Federal Census, English - 1920, 28% complete
España Lugo Registros Parroquiales, Spanish - 1530-1930, 6% complete
Florida 1945 Census, English - 1945, 24% complete
France, Coutances, Paroisses de la Manche, French - 1792-1906, 7% complete
Guanajuato Censo de Mexico de 1930, Spanish - 1930, 56% complete
Guerrero - Censo de Mexico de 1930, Spanish - 1930, 35% complete
Illinois - 1920 US Federal Census, English - 1920, 15% complete
Massachusetts - 1920 US Federal Census, English - 1920, 15% complete
Morelos - Censo de Mexico de 1930, Spanish - 1930, 68% complete
New York - 1870 US Federal Census, English - 1870, 55% complete
Nicaragua, Managua Civil Records, Spanish - 1879 - present, 8% complete
Quintana Roo - Censo de Mexico de 1930, Spanish - 1930, 88% complete
Trento, Italy Baptism Records, Italian - 1784-1924, 7% complete
UK - Cheshire - Poor Law, English - 1848 -1967, 82% complete
Venezuela Mérida Registros Parroquiales, Spanish - 1654 - 1992, 0.3% complete

Comments

[Graeme]

Great and I'd like to help but they upgraded their indexing software to Java 1.6 which isn't available on OSX. It was a pretty effective way of getting rid of a bunch of volunteers including me. I was about to submit a batch job, the upgrade downloaded and that was the end of that.

Having said that, there's a new Java upgrade out for OSX which may help so all may not be lost

[Sandra J Smith]

I have put a lot of effort into the Cheshire index project this last month and it has been easy. What I like is that a "batch" is usually a single page, so it is simple to do one or two pages each day. The familysearch indexing is very straightforward ( unlike ancestry's which is cumbersome)with help quickly available at any point in the process. Personally I have little genealogical interest in the Cheshire area, but I believe the quicker this gets done, the quicker they will move on to other English Counties.

[Melinda Pitts Pennington]

I've been volunteering my assistance in transcribing US census records. I urge all genealogist to put some time into this project. In the end it helps us all...especially in cost. Thanks to all volunteers.

[Sherri]

Thanks for posting this. I didn't realize that the project I work on (France, Coutances, Paroisses de la Manche, French - 1792-1906) is so far from completion. That gives me new incentive.

[Julie]

I've heard that at some point in time the FamilySearch website will be closed to the general public, whether you've been a volunteer transcriber or not, and will be for LDS members only.

If anyone doubts this, look at their Family Tree site. Its now LDS only:

http://labs.familysearch.org/familytree/#start

[theKiwi]

I've been using the Family Search Indexing on Mac OS X 10.5.5 with no problems these last few days.

As mentioned, the Cheshire records are "good" to do, since firstly they contain English names, which as a Kiwi I'm pretty familiar with, secondly at 5 names per page it's not at all onerous to do a page or two in a break during the day, or a couple of pages in the evening before bedtime.

I see a note that this project is 82% complete and they're pushing to get it done by the end of this coming week.

Cheers

Roger

[Charlene Sampson-Ramel]

I was concerned about Julie's comments above and so, fired off some questions to familysearch three hours ago. Here is the response I just rec'd from Dan Lawyer (& I'm trusting he won't mind if I share it here:

Charlene,
Thanks for your questions about accessing the FamilySearch website. Let me try and clarify. Our plan is to make our services available to the general public. The Family Tree is currently only available to some members of the LDS Church. This is just a short term restriction until we finish deploying the system to different locations around the world. Once this is complete we plan to make it available to the general public. The Record Search program is available to the general public now and will always be available to the public free of charge. Our desire is to provide access to everyone free of charge. Occasionally, we are restricted, based on contractual obligations, in who is authorized to see a certain record set. We also anticipate that some 3rd party organizations will host record sets that can be searched in Record Search but accessed elsewhere. They will likely have their own policies around access and cost. I hope this helps alleviate your concerns and clarify our direction.

Dan Lawyer
Product Manager
FamilySearch

lawyerdc@familysearch.org

[Jacqui]

Great to see our hard work is recognised and to see how far each project is from completion. Now I will download the Cheshire Poor Law record set next so we can get it finished.

And yes I agree that the Ancestry indexing is very cumbersome and I do feel that I would have given up on it if I hadn't already done familysearch indexing. OK the Andrews collection index cards for Ancestry are not exactly your straightforward starters but there is so little onscreen help - there is no option to save to your computer or work on or offline - who knows what it is doing?

I must admit I downloaded the Ancestry indexing software out of curiosity but I will be doing most of my indexing for familysearch I think.

[Dick Eastman]

---> I've heard that at some point in time the FamilySearch website will be closed to the general public...

That rumor is 100% wrong. The long term plan is to attract more and more users, both LDS and non-LDS users.

- Dick Eastman

[Mirtyanne]

---> I've heard that at some point in time the FamilySearch website will be closed to the general public...

That rumor is 100% wrong. The long term plan is to attract more and more users, both LDS and non-LDS users.---<

Rumor or not but I find that those records have many errors to them. They should require people who add records to show proof.

[Carol]

Re accurate records- any record of any kind any where is only as good as the individual that provided the information. There is no way to "require" people to show proof. Or even to be accurate in proof. Ideally nobody will post information--or contribute information that is not accurate. However, my great-grandfather James Hart certainly did not die in Nebraska long before it was even a territory much less a state, yet some one posted that supposedly from my information. When something is posted wrong it is like feathers in the wind.

When I asked this lady why she had posted information she clearly knew nothing about, she responded with "Oh I was done and I posted left over information".

Well hey not only was it left over, it did not relate to her, it was far from complete,there was no documentation to suggest any thing--- and I have no idea where she got the Nebraska idea. Nothing any where suggested this man had gone farther west than Indiana.

Or- look at census records in error. Any other legal record can have errors.

What I am saying is there is nothing that does not need to be checked for accuracy- at least audited for overall accuracy. We take what we can get and work with it the best we can. Hopefully it is accurate but we still have to check. There are those who are very reliable and there are those who are sloppy and there are those in between.

I don't like it but that is the way it is.