Sunday, March 02, 2008

Adventures in FamilySearch Indexing - Week 32

I didn't know what to index this week because all the familiar projects to me appear completed. I finally decided to index some state census records.

The first project was the Wisconsin 1895 State Census. I have to say I was less than thrilled indexing this record. You had to use the ruler and it was hard flipping back and forth and up and down to see what the column header was for a section. The image was readable but the handwriting left much to be desired.

I kept asking myself I wonder what my new found indexing friend of last week would think about this? So I finally asked her to review my batch for me. Here are the results.
Corrections [130]
1 Newman = Newnan
3 Maryan = Mangan Note that this is a male
I'm not sure of the surname, but your attempt is probably a good one.
6 British-America: 1 = 2
14 Carvan = Carnan
22 Ireland: 1 = 2
24 Ott = Otto
31 Given Name: = M
Surname: McEdwin = Edwin
35 Jarv*to = Jaronto
44 Edword = Edward His "a's" and "o's" have been very "iffy". I would choose the traditional.
48 Gunter = Gruter
49 LaMeur = La Mere
51 Pouski = Ponski

These names were not easy. Some of my interpretations may not be correct. If you feel I am wrong, just put what you think it is. A lot will depend on what the other indexer enters and then what the arbitrator decides.
Do I need a second set of eyes watching out for me or what! It really kicks me that I didn't catch the fact Maryan was a male, given that consideration Mangan looks much more promising. As you can see I even got some of the numbers in there columns wrong. I really didn't like the format of this at all. I would of preferred that is use the table entry format while indexing and not the form entry. I really hope by my saying that, it doesn't discourage people from working on this census. Needless to say I was still finished with Wisconsin 1895 and went on to another project.

The second project was South Dakota 1925 State Census. Overall I liked it better than Wisconsin's but it still had to much moving around for me to do. Ok, I'm a spoiled brat after getting to wiz through the Federal Censuses. This project had you reading little cards with the information on it. I found it ironic that this entry form was table and not form entry. It seemed like the formats where mixed up and should of been reversed on both of my projects.

I had this one card with the gentlemen being 72 years old. Under the year he was married it very boldly stated 1775. There was no doubting that one, there was no way the 7 was an 8. He every well could of been married in 1875 but I had to type in what I saw.

I also had under ancestry someone write Nor. Am. I would of thought North American but his father was from South Dakota and his mother was from Norway. So it would of been Norwegian and American. I typed it like that but I have no idea if that is wrong it certainly isn't listed in the lookup.

I guess my eyes where not up to the job today. I kinda felt dizzy after doing my indexing projects this week. It could also be that I just got new glasses that have bifocals in them, what a learning curve that is. I could hardly sleep last night because my neck and shoulders hurt so bad from moving my head around trying to see things. It appears I will have more opportunities to index state censuses in the future, which is kinda neat. I really need to go over the state censuses for my New York people so I can hardly wait for that project to turn up. Maybe by then I will be used to their formats. Total indexed today 74, grand total to date 3,176.

See ya tomorrow, for tomorrow is always another genealogy day!

1 comment:

Ranch Mom said...

Renee, I know that your time is limited, but you might try indexing the Irish BMD indexes. They are extremely easy and are all typed and a cinch to read. There are fewer columns and you do a lot of tabbing across. The only drawback for you might be that there are 375 names in a batch.

Pat in FL