The first thing I do when I start to index is to look for messages from Headquarters, and yup there was a new one for us:
From: HeadquartersI wonder what the changes will be? I guess I won't find out until next week. It is possible that we won't even notice any changes - just internal stuff being worked on.
Subject: Update to FamilySearch Indexing & Instruction for Mac Users
Date: 28 Mar 2008
All Users
On Monday, March 31, 2008, a new release of the indexing program will become available. The program on your computer will automatically update to the newest version of the indexing program the next time you sign in.
The indexing server will be down from about 10:00AM to 2:00PM MDT to complete this upate. Please do not try to download or submit batches during this time.
Mac Users
Those who use a Macintosh computer will need to start the program from the Web site to get the new version and avoid a start-up issue. You will only need to do this once. Follow these easy steps after 2:00PM on Monday:
1. Delete the FamilySearch indexing icon from your desktop.
2. Go to the FamilySearch indexing home page (www.familysearchindexing.org) in your internet browser.
3. Click the Start Indexing button. A new copy of the indexing program will download to your computer.
4. Sign in normally once the download is complete.
We greatly appreciate all you do. Thank you for your patience as we complete these upgrades to the program.
I was curious if the New York Censuses had come out but I didn't see any. The 1870 U.S. Federal Census is the next project to begin. I was kinda hoping they would have us index the New York Status Census records. That is just the project I need for my genealogy. I would just be so happy if they would do the State Censuses. Ok, if any of the powers to be over FamilySearch Indexing projects reads this blog just pencil in the New York State Censuses for me and I won't tell anyone that you did that. (hehe)
I was kind of surprised that The New England Historic Genealogical Society has the 1945 Florida Census project coming up. I am assuming that is the Florida State Census because of the year. I guess the State Censuses have a different privacy rule than the Federal Census have. But then again the Irish Birth Records project indexes up to 1958. You could never index those records in the United States. To each their own. I sure would make sure I had a fraud alert on my credit bureau report if I was them. Actually that's not a bad idea anyways to have the fraud alert on your credit bureau report - it gives you a lot of peace of mind and it cost nothing to have it done. I used to work for a credit card company in their fraud department and I saw the value of that first hand.
Ok, now on to what I actually accomplished in FamilySearch Indexing this week. Since there was no New York projects I decided to work on bloating my indexing figures as high as I can get them. That is I worked on the Irish Marriage Indexes 1922-1958. I did one batch and got credit for indexing 375 "records", but there was actually only 204 individuals on it. So I had 171 brownie points given to me.
I tried to do another batch of the Irish Marriage Indexes but they were all gone when I went to download them. That made me notice that the list to download batches is working a little differently. You use to click on the project and then find out there are no more images to download. Now when the images are gone for a project they remove the project name from the possible list. I hope that makes sense! Anyways no Marriage records to index soooooooo, I picked the Irish Death Indexes 1945-1958 to index next. I guess I'm really into doing two batches on Sunday now.
The Irish Death Indexes had only one more column to index than the marriage records and that was the age at death. I guess for that extra work they only have you index 250 records instead of the marriage records 375. I actually had only 168 individuals on the page so I had 82 brownie points given me this time. Not to bad but I get much more credit doing the marriage indexes. Overall though I like the Death indexes better. You feel like you are really indexing vital information - sorry I guess you are at that haha. Just that one extra column of the age at death makes you start to connect with a person. The marriage records are kinda bland. I guess I will have to try the birth records next to get a good feel for those records.
It surprised me when I looked at my monthly total today. I have credit for indexing 2574 records. Normally I index about 400-600 records a month - depending on how many Sundays there are. There was an extra Sunday this month. Before I began indexing this month I had indexed a total of 3,100 individuals. I almost indexed this month the same total I did in the previous 31 weeks. Right now my overall grand total is 5,676 records.
With all this bloating of the figures it makes you wonder if we really do index 1.7 million NAMES a day. So is that individuals indexed or are we counting records accounted for? Do they count the same record twice because it's done twice or is it accounted for only once as just the individual? Just wondering - if anyone know the answer let me know. Either way it is still impressive the amount of indexing we are getting done. Not every project has the bloated numbers the Irish records have. Now watch me index the Irish records next week and I get two full 3 column pages starting in the O's.
Before I leave you I wanted to let you know that there was an error is copying information from an email I received and placed had on my blog last week. The word "blank" didn't carry over because it was placed between the greater and last than signs and was read as HTML code. If it didn't make any sense last week on how to mark multiple rows blank I have fixed the error now. Here is a link to last week's article.
See ya tomorrow, for tomorrow is always another genealogy day!
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