Issue 51.14
Jake Gehring, a FamilySearch employee shared a great explanation of the FamilySearch Indexing process. He explained the following: An average set of historical records goes through many preliminary steps before it can be indexed by volunteers. There are a lot of historical records in the world. Many of them are well-known to genealogists, others not so much. Before any collection can be indexed by FamilySearch volunteers, it must first be discovered. FamilySearch representatives often discover collections of value by talking to archivists, librarians, county clerks, and genealogists who know their local records well. Preferred are records that describe family relationships, contain vital information (births, marriages, and deaths), and cover a broad section of the population.
Once records of genealogical value are located, FamilySearch representatives work with the records custodian to establish a publishing license. The most common arrangement is a kind of trade—FamilySearch agrees to cover the costs of digitization and publication in exchange for the right to publish the content on the Internet. The custodian receives a copy of the resulting files for its own use as well.
Once an agreement to publish is in place, FamilySearch mobilizes its record filming “army.” In the past record filming meant microfilming, but now virtually all images of documents are captured using digital cameras. Right now, over 275 crews are in various places in the world taking pictures of old documents. These digital files are sent back to Salt Lake City on hard drives or over the Internet, where they are reviewed for quality. If they pass the quality check, they proceed on to the next step in the process.
Once records have arrived, they are examined in greater detail to determine how best to make them available to patrons. Options include cataloging (according to type, date range, location, and so on), making the images browseable (viewable online), and indexing (provided sufficient volunteer indexers are available). Projects are then placed on a master schedule to be completed as resources become available.
Every collection that needs to be indexed must be set up in the indexing system with project instructions, sample images, field helps, and a variety of special instructions to ensure the work runs smoothly. For many collections, this work involves languages other than English, so linguistic specialists are brought in to help. Some projects are so large or so complex that special training needs to be created and delivered in emails, webinars, and so forth (such as the current obituaries initiative).
After all is prepared, the project goes live in FamilySearch indexing. Volunteers can begin checking out work and submitting their transcribed records back to FamilySearch.
For more information, contact Shanna Jones (435)628-4900 or FamilySearch Support (866) 406-1830.