Issue 34.12
April 2, 2012 was the day the 1940 census was released from the National Archives following the 72 year privacy act allowing it to be made public. That evening FamilySearch Indexing began the indexing process. It was finished in just over four months, far faster than even imagined or hoped. FamilySearch wants to thank the tens of thousands of volunteers who worked so hard to help create this valuable census index. Collectively, they shattered dozens of records. If anyone would have said that they could have started and completed a project like that in less than five months without outsourcing any part of the collection, no one would have believed it. But they did, thanks to the help of people like you. They had more than 150,000 indexers take part, some of whom indexed more than 100,000 records by themselves.
As FamilySearch brings this project to a close, they hope that you will continue to index some of the other collections they currently have available. Now that you have been trained and have such great experience indexing and arbitrating, they invite you to continue using your skills to make more records freely available to all who want to discover their ancestors and their history. To search the indexed records go to www.familysearch.org or click on the Indexing link there to do some indexing. They are focusing on immigration records now.
Many have asked if a name has been indexed incorrectly or was spelled wrong, can that record be corrected. Can you add an alternate spelling to an index for a historical record collection? At this time, FamilySearch does not have a process to correct errors in the indexes made for historical records. At FamilySearch they understand your need and desire for accurate records about your family and regret any errors in the indexes to their historical record collections (records such as birth, marriage, death, census, and more).
Errors have been made in spite of their three-step process, however they are the most accurate of any available. Over the years, tens of thousands of volunteers have given many hours to index these records. They have tried to ensure accuracy by having one indexer extract the information, a second indexer extract the same information and a third-party arbitrator resolves any differences between the two. But, once an index is published they do not have a process to correct errors or to add notes to the indexes.
FamilySearch has been looking into this process to correct errors to the records. They are continually working to improve their processes and to provide indexes to more of the records in their vast collection. They tell me they have only scratched the surface of indexing the many records they have available in the Granite Mountain Records Vault and the additional records continually being gained by sending missionaries worldwide to digitize records. Recently they received the largest record set ever from one country, Italy, and are working to index all of those Italian records.
With the need to preserve and share accurate information about your family, FamilySearch understands your need and provides two ways that you can do so on the internet, at no charge. You can submit your accurate, well-documented family information to the Pedigree Resource File. This is done by submitting your pedigree in a GEDCOM file to Pedigree Resource File and your pedigree will be preserved as it was submitted. These submissions are not combined with any other records but they do become searchable as a resource under Trees (not to be confused with Family Tree).
The second option is to add your family information to new.FamilySearch.org or the Family Tree at FamilySearch.org which will soon replace new FamilySearch. In these collaborative pedigrees, family members work together on their family information. You can add information; add family members, relationships and details. You can delete or edit incorrect information by using the Family Tree which you could not do in new FamilySearch. You can add notes, sources and discussions. These fields help all family members to understand what sources are available about their family and what research has been done. Discussions enable families to resolve their differences about the data.
For more information please contact Shanna Jones at shannasjones@msn.com or 435-628-4900.