Adventures in FamilySearch Indexing: Week 73

My friend Henry Mantell in England gave me a heads up that there are some technical issues on FamilySearch Indexing right now. Some indexers are having difficulty uploading their batches. Since this is the time I normally index I thought I would see if I will be lucky working in it today.

I logged onto the FamilySearch Indexing site and there are no new messages there. I logged onto the application itself and there is one message for us there.

From: Headquarters
Subject: Technical Issues
Date: 06 Feb 2009

There are a few issues that have come up this week that we are working to resolve and should be taken care of soon. In the meantime, there are work-arounds that may help you as you index:

• If your cursor keeps jumping back to previously indexed fields, you can exit the program and then follow the steps in this document (or click here to open the document) to delete your Java temporary files. You can also run the Quality Checker on the batch by clicking on the Quality Checker tab in the lower right corner on the indexing screen.
• If you have a batches that will not submit, follow the steps in this document and then try again. If it still will not submit, please save your work and return the batches for someone else to complete.
  

Group Administrator or Stake Extraction Directors:

• If someone you are helping is getting an "Unable to Launch" error message, click here and walk them through the steps provided.
• If you are helping somone volunteer in an LDS stake and it won't seem to go past the first screen, be sure that when you type in the LDS stake name that you click on one of the options from the drop-down list. Until the name is selected from the list it will not recognize the stake has been chosen.

This all seemed kind of scary to me. Oh well, indexing is an adventure and I'm up for one. I wanted to work on a Federal Census and yes, there is one. The Colorado 1920 US Federal Census is available. I downloaded three batches to work on for tonight. I had no problem getting the program to launch or setting up the batch. Then the issue began.

Every time I typed in a field and hit tab it would have the quality check pop-up appear. That was major annoying and not workable for me. I knew about the instructions if my cursor jumps back to the previous field or my batch wouldn't submit. I thought well I will try the same instructions for a fix on my quality check pop-up problem. It shows you how to delete your Java temporary files.

It took hardly any time to follow the steps for the fix and what do you know I am right back into the business of indexing again. Since I wanted to relax while doing this I put on some mood music. The Your LDS Radio station on the internet was just the right thing.

I had no issues submitting my first batch. Appears that deleting my Java tempory files were just what I needed to do. Things appear to be working as a charm. Just wish it was as easy to read some of the handwriting like that.

There were also no issues with my next two batches being submitted either. The instructions to fix the problem work beautifully. I did three batches of 50 names each. The total today is 150 names indexed and 10,791 to-date indexed.

Now, for something extra this week. I have a link to an article on MormonTimes. It's about Dan Bradford that has done FamilySearch Indexing in Iraq. He did an amazing 10,000 names in one month.

I hope you are also following my other blog articles throughout the week. Since I am on the Church Media list I receive press releases that I pass along to you. The most recent one was FamilySearch Indexing Update: 6 Feb 2009. We usually get a list of projects completed and what is available now on Records Search. I hardly ever think to mention them in my weekly articles on indexing because I hate to repeat myself.

Since I have a little time left before bed I guess I will work on my TreePad database. I am moving all my old emails into the database for reference. I have a new project that I am planning on developing with my database. Making a Research Log in TreePad. It might be a while before it's ready for prime time but it's in the works. I just love how I can search every word in TreePad so I think a Research Log will be a very nice fit there.

One of my readers Stephen Younger from Oregon suggested it to me. We both have different visions of what it will look like but that's ok. Everyone has different ways of doing things and different needs. I just can't tell you how much fun I have been having with TreePad now that it works on a flash drive. Even my none techie husband has started to use the program. I gave him my U3 flash drive, that I can't stand, because he doesn't know any better, hehe. Actually after watching a tutorial on their site I understand it a little better. Still loads to slow for me but it's ok. Well, I'm off.

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