FamilySearch.org Indexing Project Volunteer Challenges

I have been researching my family history for many years. I am serious enough about my research that I subscribe to paid-for-view websites like Genealogy.com, Ancestry.com. Footnote.com, etc. I am a member of biographical and genealogical societies within the United States as well. But, I also take advantage of the various website that are a part of the WorldGenWeb project.

The WorldGenWeb project is an informal collaboration of volunteers who transcribe records for a particular region and make the transcriptions available to anyone who visits that region's website. The Mormon Church also established a website, http://www.familysearch.org/, that includes free information that has been somewhat useful to me.

One day, I read an article in an online newsletter I receive about a project that FamilySearch.org had created. They were looking for volunteers to transcribe information on images of birth registers, census records, death certificates, etc. in order to create links to these images.

Instead of having to go to a Family History Center to view these images on microfilm, the searchable indices would link to an online image. I thought, "What a way to give back!" I registered as an indexer.

I had only been an indexer for a few months when I was sent a message asking me to be an arbitrator. I had not indexed that many images but I was very methodical about the images that I did index. And then, I am probably not the most prolific arbitrator because I spend a lot of time looking at each of the two indexers results before I make a decision about which one is right.

Each project is rated as easy, intermediate and hard. Those projects that are considered hard usually involve a foreign language. So I tend to download a batch to arbitrate that is considered intermediate. Several days ago, I downloaded a batch from Michigan marriage registers. The handwriting of the person who recorded the marriages for Emmet County in 1909 had terrible handwriting!

Of the 152 entries in this batch, indexer A's entries differed in some way from indexer B's entries in all but five instances. After spending eight hours trying to arbitrate this batch, I developed a headache. At this point, I decided to save the work and continue the next day. Needing a diversion, I thought that I should download something from the easy category.

I accidentally downloaded baptismal records from Argentina. Since I can read Spanish, I decided to continue. It turned out to be easy to arbitrate and a great break from the worst handwriting I've seen since I started indexing and arbitrating.

Over the last few days, I spend a little time on the batch from hell and then download an easy project to arbitrate as a break.

Americanization of Foreign Names

 When I first began to research my family history, I started with a branch on my mother's side of the tree. Her father's side of the family had been in the United States since the 1600s. They were Dutch. As I found records of births, marriages, deaths, etc. I found the name of an individual recorded using different spellings.

This was largely due to the fact that the people recording the name wrote the name phonetically. For example, I have relatives who were named Anneke. I often found the name written as Annetje, Annetie, Anneken, Annatje, Antje and Anna. The last spelling was the beginning of Anglicizing the Dutch names in America.

It was easy for me to guess at the various ways the Dutch names were Anglicized because I could witness the changes as they occurred in the written records in a given relative's lifetime. However, when I started to research my family history on my father's side, I did not have the luxury of watching names evolve as result of viewing the records because the records were not in the United States.

My great, great grandfather Americanized his Norwegian patronym after he arrived in the United States. That name became his surname in America. When I finally had access to Norwegian records, I looked for records of a Martin, son of Simon. I was wondering why no records would some up when I searched for Simon.

One day I was reading an article in a genealogical magazine about Scandinavian migration to America. The article discussed the letters in the various Scandinavian alphabets that do not exist in the American English alphabet and how the Scandinavian immigrants adapted the spelling of their names. From that aha moment, I was able to learn that Simon was the Americanization of Seming/Semming.

Just as I think that I've unlocked the secret of how one would Americanize one's name, I began to research my husband's family history. The branches of his family came to the United States from Poland and Russia. Since they were Jewish, they often arrived with Yiddish or Hebrew names. Trying to guess what the original names were for his relatives at the time they arrived in America has been a real challenge.

The challenge results from my not knowing how letters in the various alphabets of the Eastern European countries sound. It is difficult to try to guess how Frank might be the Amercian version of Ephraim or Froim. So I am trying to learn the sounds of letters of the Yiddish, Polish and Russian alphabets.

History Repeats Itself

I spend most of my time looking at events that occurred before 1920 and the history of those times. Yet, every once and a while I have deja vu of some event in my own life. At times we do not recognize that this "new" idea is the same idea that we saw in the past. Cloud computing for me is such an example.

When I became a software programmer PCs did not exist. Data and information was stored on storage devices connected to mainframe computers. To access that data, one had to connect to the computer via a "dumb" terminal. The sole purpose of the terminal was to allow a user to type a command that was sent to the computer and display the results on the terminal screen.

In the 1980s PCs were being introduced. I remember using a PC that could pretend that it was a dumb terminal and connect to the mainframe. The difference between the dumb terminal and the PC was that I could now capture the data and use PC applications to manipulate it, create reports, run analysis application with it.

The concept of distributed processing emerged as a result of the introduction of the PC. However, the IT (Information Technology) people were justifiably concerned about how to support this type of environment. Can you expect that a PC user will know when and how to apply software upgrades? Can you expect a PC user to backup his/her data that is stored on a PC hard drive? And many more questions were raised.

There were definite advantages to having a centralized system. System upgrades were handled at single point within an organization and by the IT professionals. Data files were routinely backed up in the event of a failure in the system. At that time, this was a problem about which businesses had to be concerned.

As time marched on, more and more people were buying PCs and buying high speed access to the Internet. The interest in genealogy was growing rapidly during this same time. By the 21st century, we could access the Internet at high speeds, take digital photos, download digital images related to our family history.

Where did we store these images and information but on our PC. Did most of us have a backup procedure to make sure that we did not lose those images or that data we spent years gathering? Probably not, based on the number of posts that I see about recovering files from a hard disk that crashed or from a computer that died.

So it seems that we are in a revival of a sort of the mainframe-dumb terminal era. Cloud computing is the name of the game. The cloud computing businesses are telling you that you can store your photos, document images, and family tree outside of your computer. All of your data will be backed up and recoverable.

The difference today from back in the days of the mainframe and dumb terminals is you can access your stuff from any PC. Just provide your login ID and password.

Family Lore

I have been researching my ancestors for many years and often come across information and stories that are full of erroneous facts and false information. In most cases, the persons relaying the information are not lying. The persons simply have facts confused. Unfortunately with the Internet, this erroneous information is found and disseminated as fact over and over again.

However, I have found that there is usually a grain of truth in what you may find on the Internet. Use that information as a starting point and validate it before accepting it as fact.

My mother told me that her grandmother was born in Dennison, Minnesota. I had no reason to believe that my mother would trick me. However, as I began researching my family, I learned that my grandmother was born in Cottage Grove, Minnesota and had never lived in Dennison. Cottage Grove is near Wisconsin and Dennison is near South Dakota.

Eventually I figured out why my mother thought that her grandmother was born in Dennison. Some of my grandmother's mother's family had moved to Dennison and my mother remembered her grandmother going to Dennison to visit her relatives.

After my father's eldest sister passed away, my cousin gave me copies of a family tree that her mother had written. She had listed the city in which my children were born as Sherman Oaks. That is where we lived, not where my children were born. She simply did not know the facts.

As you research your ancestry, be willing to look beyond the stories you've been told.

Happy family hunting!

Lanaii