Issue 31.16
If you participated in the Worldwide Indexing Event in July, you were in good company. The event far surpassed its goal of 72,000 participants around the globe; a total of 116,475 individuals worked to make the world’s historical records available to those doing their family history work. These individuals indexed 10,447,887 records to add to the treasure trove of information available to family history researchers.
That final number of participants exceeded the original target by 44,475 participants—a 61.8 percent increase over the original goal.
From its beginning on Thursday in Southeast Asia and Australia to its conclusion Sunday night in the Pacific, the event attracted a wide range of participants, from those working alone at a home computer to those participating in an organized event like the one held by a group in Zurich, Switzerland. “We were about 20 people,” Joshua Christian Drewlow wrote on the FamilySearch Facebook page. “Everybody brought his own laptop, and we sat in a big conference room. . . . We had a super awesome atmosphere there!”
The scene was similar thousands of miles away. In St George, Utah, 20 individuals participated in a Sunday afternoon indexing party where the indexers dined on popcorn and starburst, helped each other decipher names, and compared document information.
The efforts in Switzerland and Utah were repeated across the globe. While North America had the largest number of participants, with 69,915 total, all regions were represented in reaching the total number of 116,475 participants. The numbers for each region are:
Africa and the Pacific: 1,876
Asia: 1,360
Europe and the Middle East: 3,948
Latin America: 16,686
North America: 92,943
Participants in each region could choose record batches to index in their own language. The younger generation was well represented worldwide. There were 10,348 participants age 17 or younger, according to FamilySearch statistics. The numbers of participants for all age groups are:
17 and younger: 10,348
18–30: 12,211
31–45: 19,460
46–65: 31,585
66 or older: 24,104
Aubrey Olsen and Sue Story, both relatively new to indexing, scrolled through documents and both said they’ve developed a real affinity for family history because of indexing. “You look at these records and realize these people were real,” said Olsen. She analyzed North Carolina death certificates and wondered about the lives of those who had died. Story, who worked on records from the Dutch Reformed Church in Namibia, was first introduced to indexing in West Virginia. She tries to index records daily. She says it’s easy to do about 10 records in 15 minutes. “If everyone would do it, we would have so many more projects and records available for everyone to use in their family history.”
For more information, contact Shanna Jones shannasjones@msn.com www.searchshanna.com