indexing Question

Nathaniel Simon Notheisen

what do you do when you can determine a persons name besides one letter? Is it ok to put a question mark in place of that and submit it?

John Empoliti

Hi Nathaniel. Below, from the General Indexing Guideline section provided with the Project Instructions for every batch, is guidance for how to deal with partially or wholly unreadable information. So, for example, if you can read all but a letter, you can use a question mark (? )for that isolated unreadable letter. As in H?ndley. Or if you can’t read two or more letters in a row, you use an asterisk (*) to represent that string of unknown letters. As in H*ley. Details are given below for more situations. What you don’t do is guess at a name or letter and put a question mark after it to try to tell the system that you’re not sure about it.

Unreadable Information

Some information may be difficult to read because of damage to a document or other factors. You can represent unreadable information in various ways, depending on how much information is unreadable.

• One character. If you are unable to read 1 letter or number, use a question mark (?) to replace the unreadable letter or number.

o Example: H?ndley.

• Multiple characters. For consecutive unreadable letters or numbers, use an asterisk (*) to replace the unreadable group of letters or numbers. o Example: Di*son.

• One field. When all of the information for an indexing field is unreadable, to mark the field as Unreadable, click in the field, and press Ctrl+U, or on the indexing toolbar, click the icon.

• Entire record. When all of the information in an entire record is unreadable, including the name, date, and any information for other required fields, to mark the record as Unreadable, press Ctrl+Shift+U.

• Entire image. If none of the information to be indexed on the image is readable, mark it in Step 1: Images as No, No Extractable Data.

John Empoliti

Hi Nathaniel. PM Lynch gives good advice to compare other examples of writing by the clerk to try and figure out the problem letter.

Also, below I cite a section from one version of the General Indexing Guidelines (GIG), a set of general indexing rules, which is included with the Project Instructions for every Project. The GIG can be overridden by the specific Project Instructions or Field Help for your particular project. This section I cite addresses how to deal with Unreadable Information.

So, as it says below, if you can read all but one letter of the person's name, you enter what you are sure of and put a question mark (?) for the letter that you're not sure of. That sounds like your situation. So, as in the first example below, you might enter H?ndley.

If you were not sure of 2 or more letters in a row, you would use an asterisk (*) for that string of unreadable letters (e.g. Di*son).

And rather than guessing at a letter (unless you're reasonably sure of it), I would suggest using the ? in place of the problem letter, as in the first example above. and below. Then the search results will include your "guess" but also any other letter including the correct one if your guess is incorrect.

Unreadable Information

Some information may be difficult to read because of damage to a document or other factors. You can represent unreadable information in various ways, depending on how much information is unreadable.

One character

If you are unable to read 1 letter or number, use a question mark (?) to replace the unreadable letter or number. Example: H?ndley

Multiple characters

For consecutive unreadable letters or numbers, use an asterisk (*) to replace the unreadable group of letters or numbers. Example: Di*son

One field

When all of the information for an indexing field is unreadable, to mark the field as Unreadable, click in the field, and press Ctrl+U, or on the indexing toolbar, click the ? in a black box icon (6th horizontal icon from the left)

Entire record

When all of the information in an entire record is unreadable, including the name, date, and any information for other required fields, to mark the record as Unreadable, press Ctrl+Shift+U.

Entire image

If none of the information to be indexed on the image is readable, mark it in Step 1: Images as No, No Extractable Data.

PMLynch

You can put in the letter you think it is and it will come up as alternate spellings when it is later searched for.

You can also check other words written by the same person for clues as to what the letter is.

Nathaniel Simon Notheisen

how do you make it a letter you think it is and not just the actual letter so the computer can tell the difference. I didn't know how to phrase this question sorry.

Dellory Matthews

If you share your batch link or code here, someone else may be able to read the name.

Steps:

1. When your batch is open, click Help, just above the toolbar.
2. On the drop-down menu, click Share Batch.
3. The Share Batch window opens, giving you two options:

Copy the batch link

Share the batch code