RE: United States—Enlisted and Officer Muster Rolls and Rosters, 1916–1939 [Part N]

Attention: New Indexers or Reviewers of the latest Part of the Muster Roll and Roster Project:
- The new Muster Roll and Roster Project - Part N - is available for Indexing and Review. And on my first review batch, I'm already noticing problems.
- But once again, in all three of the Indexing Examples, no soldier has an enlistment date shown, so the date of the Roll or Roster must be used as the Military Date. It seems to be a waste of examples. I created Example #4 for an earlier part of this project. It discusses other situations than those in Indexing Examples #1-3: See the next link.
- https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/108322/comments-on-united-states-enlisted-and-officer-muster-rolls-and-rosters-1916-1939-part-l
- Fair enough, per the Field Help (FH) - purple question mark)- for the Military Date Fields:
- The date at the top of a roster or roll may be used for all entries as the military date if the entries don't contain their own individual enlistment dates.
- When multiple dates are present on the image, please choose the military year based on the following hierarchy:
- Enlistment date
- Muster roll or monthly roster date
- Any other applicable military date
- If more than 1 enlistment date was given, use the earliest (enlistment) date.
- What happens if there is no date at the top of the page - i.e. no roll or roster date? Answer: The batch page might be a continuation page of a roll or that began on a previous image. You may look back among the reference images (-1 to -5) to find that first page and extract the roll or roster Date as demonstrated in the Indexing Examples#1-3 from the Project Instructions.
- The Field Help for Military Year OKs this, but the FH for Military Month and Day is silent on this "look back" option. However, FS Support says that we may "look back" for the full Military date
- What happens if some soldiers have enlistment dates and others don't? Answer: Use the actual enlistment date as the Military Date for those who have one, and use the Roll or Roster date at the top of the page for those who don't.
- How do we index bimonthly rosters? Answer: The date of a bimonthly roster is the later of the two dates given. That is, if the bimonthly roster covers the period 31-Aug-1913 to 31-Oct-1913, then the date of that roster is 31-Oct-1913. See the link in item three above for a detailed discussion on this issue.
Answers
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Thank you for talking about this. I feel that these batches in particular have attracted a lot of new indexers because of the relative ease in indexing them. Ive noticed this last batch M was completed very quickly compared to batches J, K, or L. I will look out specifically for and carefully review these alongside you and the other regulars on here to make sure this new batch is done correctly, straight from the start.
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Yes, thank you John for taking the time to explain some of the instructions in this batch. I, too, am noticing problems while reviewing and most have to do with the project instructions not being followed. I agree with Colin that new indexers do these batches because they seem easy and I've noticed that they are done rapidly causing skips in information and names being skipped or left off or suffixes being added.
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Yes, probably because they are mostly typed they seem deceptively “easy”/ “Beginning” at first glance, And they are pretty painless if the Indexer reads, understands and follows all the directions. - and doesn’t rush through them. A lot of important guidance is buried in the Field Helps. Some new Indexers might not even be aware that they exist.
Careless mistakes (e.g. skipping names) aside, they are rated Intermediate for a reason - maybe because of the number/percentage of review-corrections the Project Managers observe. I believe that the instructions are not as clear as they could be, and the examples certainly are not as comprehensive/ representative or expansive in their explanations as they need to be.
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I'm new, and I am sure I did not fill out some indexes right on the Military rolls. Glad I saw this, so I may correct my ways. My first one I only did 40, and there was still many more remaining, as I did not know you could add to the index, sorry! I may stop doing this particular category, so they can be done correctly from the start until I get better. Thanks for this, and your time for making sure everyone has the correct information.
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Hi Joshua. No need to shy away from this project - it's a great project. Just read the instructions carefully. If you have problems or questions with a batch please share the Batch Code - the combination of letters and numbers at the end of the Batch name in brackets that begins with M - looks like [MXXX-XXX].
You can post that here or via a Direct Message.
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Great, if I do have questions I will reach out for assistance so it is done correctly. Thanks for your help.
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