Adventures in FamilySearch Indexing - Week 41

What a crazy week I have had. My oldest son turned 25 years old and that made me feel way old. Older than my 25th anniversary did. Then my daughter had surgery on her knee. The knee surgery came on us fast. She saw the surgeon on Thursday and was scheduled for the following day. The surgeon was going on vacation for three weeks so it was then or way later and she needed the surgery sooner than later.

My daughter's apartment is on the second floor and I just knew there was no way after surgery that she could get up on the second floor or even take care of herself even if she did get up there. Since my two sons don't share a room anymore she had no bedroom to sleep in at our house. Both my son's beds are part of a bunk bed and therefore low to the ground - not good for someone with knee surgery to get up from. My husband and I gave up our bed to her and have been camping out in the living room on an air mattress. Which surprisingly isn't that bad to sleep on. Its just low to the floor and a killer to get back up from - at least we are more able to do that than she is.

It has been a long couple of days and today was a killer being the first shower after surgery. It was finally with relief that I told my husband he was on call for her. Literally on call - we use the cell phone for her to call when she needs help. We don't answer it we just go running to her. When I sat down finally to do some indexing, I found two messages from headquarters for us this week.

From: Headquarters
Subject: Questions and Answers for the Freedmen Letters
Date: 29 Apr 2008

We are so grateful to all those who have downloaded and submitted batches for the Freedmen Letters project, and invite all others who are interested to participate. So far, 20% of the batches for this project have been indexed and submitted. If we can keep up our current pace, we should be able to meet our goal of finishing this project by the beginning of June.

If you have questions regarding this project that are not answered by the project-specific indexing instructions, please visit the project revisions page to view answers to questions that we have received here at Indexing Support.

To access the project revisions page:

1. Go to the FamilySearch indexing homepage, www.familysearchindexing.org.
2. Click the Help tab.
3. Click the Ask a Question link near the top of the page.
4. Type "Freedmen Letters" into the box provided.
5. Click Ask.
6. Click the Indexing Project Instructions: Freedmen Letters link.
   

If you still have questions, please feel free to contact Indexing Support toll-free at 1-866-406-1830 or by email at indexing@familysearch.org.

Here is the second message for us.

From: Headquarters
Subject: Semimonthly Message
Date: 01 May 2008

A few tips to remember as you index:

• Louisiana Death Certificates: Records per Image & Highlights
  

The data entry area of these batches is set to three records per image. When you download a new batch, scan through all of the images to see how many records are on each image. If there is only one record on each image, change the number of records to one by clicking the Tools menu and then clicking Records per Image. In the box next to Number of records, change the number to 1. Click the Apply to all Images box. If there are two records per image, follow the same steps but change the number to 2.

There are three sets of highlights for this project. To change from one set of highlights to another, click the down arrow in the Highlights box on the toolbar. Click Type 1, 2, or 3. If your first selection doesn't fit the image well, try the next selection and so on.

• Wisconsin 1895 State Census - Locality Field
  

Some census pages include the name of a ward at the top of the page instead of a city, town, or village. When this occurs, mark the Locality field as blank. We are not indexing wards. Do not index the city, town, or village from the previous or next page.

We are also not indexing the county. The county information will be added later.

• For Arbitrators: Record Matching - Moving Multiple Lines at One Time
  

You can select multiple records to work with at the same time. To do this, click the first record. Then press (and hold down) the Shift key and click the last record. All the records highlighted can be moved together by using the up and down arrows on the toolbar above the data entry area.

This also works with No Matching Record(s), Remove Record(s), and Delete Full Record(s).

I wanted a project to work on that was easy and relaxing so I decided to work on just the Irish Death Indexes 1922-1944. I only had to run to my daughter four times while I worked on my batch. So much for Dad taking care of things. I can't blame him I have the art of fixing pillows and moving her leg just right.

Finally I did finish indexing 246 individuals but received credit for 300 records. Now I have a grand total of indexing 7077 records to date. I don't know what happened in the December quarter of 1944 but there was 21 babies (0y) that had died on my batch. There was also 8 more children under the age of seven that had died. That was a really high number compared to my other Irish Death Records batches. My guess is that is had something to do with poor nutrition during World War II.

Even with the depressing thought of children dying it was nice it was to get away for a while to index. My husband fixed us all a nice dinner so that was an added bonus. I really can't wait for bedtime and getting some sleep tonight. I know tomorrow will be better than today was for my daughter and myself. At least now I know when times are tough instead of saying Calgon take me away, I can say Indexing take me away - and it will.

See ya tomorrow, for tomorrow is always another genealogy day!