Issue 8.14
“New U.S. obituary indexing projects have appeared over the past few months and more are coming,” wrote FamilySearch’s Katie Gale. “As FamilySearch.org continues to focus on modern records that connect recent generations, these obituary records are going to be invaluable.”
This is an interesting project FamilySearch has taken on as they focus on recent records as a good way to engage new genealogists. Often a new, potential genealogist begins their search by typing in their own name and then their parents’ names. Providing recent records increases the chance that they will find something in these first searches. Obituaries, in particular, may have details beyond vital facts, and these details may have a greater ability to catch their interest.
Obituaries may also document recent vital events for which government records are not yet available. As concerns about privacy increase, government records are becoming less and less accessible.
I tried FamilySearch’s indexing tool which is supposed to be optimal for indexing all the names in an obituary. It is very informal and quite easy to index as it just asks for the main name in the obituary and the information recorded about the deceased person and then it asks about the other family members. You index just their name and their relationship to the deceased. FamilySearch is indexing each name in the obituary as a separate record and indexers are expected to insert additional lines or mark extra lines blank to accommodate the variable number of names.
It may be confusing to indexers trying to move between structured records and obituaries, so they have provided a training video found at: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1995251660001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAsMO7iuE~,0a6boL_aMzSw_yxPb4s-860v3o94zt2u&bctid=3058447685001
It is a long link, so you can find an easier link to it from my online articles at: http://seniorsampler.com/category/shannajones/
“Indexing obituaries can be a bit tricky,” wrote Gale. “They can be deceptively difficult to index,” states project instructions. In addition to the standard training materials for indexers, FamilySearch has produced additional training materials. They added a blog article: https://familysearch.org/blog/en/2014-year-obituaries-2/
Plus they have a 51 page document you can read: https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/images/0/0e/Indexing_Obituaries.pdf
For more information, contact Shanna Jones shannasjones@msn.com 435.628.4900.