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Can a source be re-indexed?

Sarah J. Robbins
Sarah J. Robbins ✭
September 2, 2021 edited September 2, 2021 in Search

I found a source that was improperly indexed (a whole page of the census was described as illegible. I could only fix the first line as an edit). What can be done?

"United States Census, 1860", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MCLZ-NH7 : 1 September 2021)

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Best Answer

  • Melissa S Himes
    Melissa S Himes ✭✭✭✭✭
    September 6, 2021 Answer ✓

    @Sarah J. Robbins, I don't know. I'm hoping the moderators take these things to that next level of whomever the "we" might be. I considered going through and editing every record, but, that would take quite a while to bring each one up and make the corrections. The 1860 census seems to be riddled with issues. You could try calling FamilySearch directly. Click on the question mark, select Contact Us, and there will be a list of phone numbers to call from everywhere in the world.

    For the United States: 1-866-406-1830 and they will be closed today for Labor Day.

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Answers

  • Melissa S Himes
    Melissa S Himes ✭✭✭✭✭
    September 2, 2021

    It looks like the whole group of 25 images needs to be worked on. There are many pages just marked [illegible].

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  • Mirevo
    Mirevo ✭✭✭✭
    September 2, 2021 edited September 2, 2021

    If the record has been published and you are reporting errors of indexing or transcription then this type of problems are managed in the Search category of this Community. We are moving your question for you can get an appropiate and timing answer in Search.

    1
  • Sarah J. Robbins
    Sarah J. Robbins ✭
    September 3, 2021

    Who do I contact about this?

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  • N Tychonievich
    N Tychonievich mod
    September 5, 2021

    @Sarah J. Robbins Looking at the URL you provided, we see that an indexer marked the ages as illegible. The indexing admins are not going to re-open an indexing project for an issue with one page in the census. The purpose of indexes is to help us find records without having to click through image-by-image. By their very nature, indexes are flawed. Flawed humans are creating them.

    Since you can find your ancestors and can open the image and see the age, the purpose of the index was met. You might want to add a note to the source attached to your Family Tree ancestor to indicate the age shown on the census page.

    1
  • Melissa S Himes
    Melissa S Himes ✭✭✭✭✭
    September 6, 2021 edited September 6, 2021

    @N Tychonievich, you probably should scroll through all 25 pages of that census. It is a mess and there are many names, both given and surnames, marked illegible. (Image 19 is a great example) There are whole pages marked illegible, as I mentioned in the first comment.

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  • Sarah J. Robbins
    Sarah J. Robbins ✭
    September 6, 2021

    @Melissa S Himes, how do we bring this to the attention of the indexing admins? Anyone searching for the names on these pages will be told there is nothing?

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