Issue 50.11
FamilySearch Indexing at https://www.familysearch.org/volunteer/indexing gets asked this question a lot, so here is an explanation –
Fewer fields allow more collections to be published more quickly. FamilySearch chooses to index fields because of an extremely insightful finding at the beginning of 2010. Analysts determined that a field reduction of 37 percent would result in approximately 169 million additional records that could be published yearly. That’s a lot of records! Now they streamline to include fields that are genealogically significant, such as birthplace, mother, father, and so on and leave out information such as “rent vs. own.” This way, they follow the principle – that “fewer fields allow more collections to be published more quickly,” and indexers can still link to images in order to interpret the remaining fields.
Another reason they focus on fewer fields is that even in the Advanced Search option at FamilySearch.org, only a limited number of fields can efficiently link you to your ancestor. Fields such as name, event, place, and year are key in narrowing your search. These, then, are the fields they are most interested I indexing.
There are always exceptions though and there are two other factors that determine what fields are indexed. Third parties – societies, organizations, and archives – that contract with FamilySearch to provide records often request additional fields. If it is in the best interest of genealogists to access these records for free, FamilySearch makes an exception to their rule. Also, if images are not available for publication, FamilySearch will index a broader range of information, which also benefits the genealogists when they do not have free access to the images.
https://www.familysearch.org/volunteer/indexing is where find FamilySearch’s Worldwide Indexing project. An army of volunteers from around the world is now working to make these records available to everyone. If you haven’t tried indexing yet, you should check it out. Indexing is what replaced the old extraction program, so you don’t have to go to the basement of the old St. George Tabernacle, all of this can be done from the convenience of our own homes. Using FamilySearch.org, anyone who wants to help preserve this valuable family information can easily extract it from historical records and provide free searchable indexes.
For more information, contact Shanna Jones shannasjones@msn.com (435) 628-4900.