Indexing
I have been working hard on a complex (for me) batch with dozens of entries. I happen to notice that my batch, already has been indexed and is bound as a source for a specfic invidual. Why? How can it be an active source, if I am indexing the document? (Yes I may be a second indexer, to check the first, but then why has the document been released as complete and bound to persons?)
Person is: LTSW-S16
My batch name is: US, Missouri, Daviess County—Marriages, 1840–1969[MS43-GD5]
Thanks.
Answers
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Many record sets have been indexed multiple times over the years. An example, my paternal family was Roman Catholic and lived in Newark, New Jersey. The baptismal registers have been indexed MANY times over the years. My 2nd greats had 11 children. Each baptism has been indexed at least 4 times.
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Interesting - this might be the first time I have heard of a re-indexing by FamilySearch. When I have asked about re-indexing projects in the past (for the purpose of correcting errors in larger sections of a collection) - I was told it is difficult if not very uncommon for records to be re-indexed. It would be interesting to know the reason(s) for why some projects may be re-indexed and others not (probably contractual obligations).
I would think that if the collection was indexed multiple times by FamilySearch - they would consolidate the index. Aine's example seems to suggest this hasn't occurred on all collections (although I haven't investigated particulars of whether the collection index is from multiple indexing projects).
Looking at: "Missouri, County Marriage, Naturalization, and Court Records, 1800-1991," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-99CY-HL55?cc=2060668&wc=Z9SX-7M9%3A352352001%2C1583587803 : 1 October 2019), Daviess > Marriage licenses index 1895-1955 vol 2 > image 298 of 486; Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City.
It indicates multiple filmings - I wonder if the multiple filmings reproduced part of earlier filmings?
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Wow. This is something new to me. However I do know Family Search is a service, indexing records for lots of different institutions. It wouldnt surprise me if one of them, say a City sent the entire batch to be reindexed if they found other records in their archives that should have been in there the first time. It would be simple for them to request a re-index so that all their digital files are up to date.
this is my opinion, so what do you guys think??🤔
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My example from New Jersey is only one of many I've found in my research. Irish civil birth registrations, from the 1860s and 1870s, primarily, have also been indexed multiple times.
That set of 2nd greats had 9 children. All their births have been indexed multiple times.
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My comments above are only related to FamilySearch Indexing projects. Whether FamilySearch is also hosting indexes from other sources/indexing projects (other than their own) is not what I was commenting on. I would assume a re-index project could be initiated by updated/agreement between record custodian/owning institution. My hope would be that both FamilySearch and record custodians would be interested in correcting problems but not in duplicating (multiple copies of the same indexed records). Interestingly Aine's example above (New Jersey Births and Christenings, 1660-1980) does not indicate multiple indexing projects (it refers to batches etc but not multiple projects) - so I would not know why people are occurring multiple times. I would have thought if there was any overlap the pre-publication would have removed duplicates ... obviously this did not occur ... Now it is 'a legacy collection' apparently the index will not be edited (but also mentioned is data corruption - so it would be interesting to know what collections are stored on what 'legacy' platforms or if/why 'legacy' platform data has/won't be migrated to 'current supported' platforms. I wish I knew more about how the data/collections is distributed over different/'legacy' platforms. I would hope they would all migrate to 'current supported' platforms - if that helped assist with reducing corruption.)
As far as to why multiple sources may show for some records - yes the fact that many indexes (books of indexes for a particular location done by different authors/projects, for example) have occurred over time - thus resulting in multiple sources (though there is only one original). Not that FamilySearch has done multiple indexes of the record set/collection - but that there are other sources/indexes of those records. Again if they all refer to the same original source/record collection/set - hopefully those records can be consolidated into one source reference (at some point) rather than remain 'separate sources'.
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The other issue that occurred with the multiple indexes of those New Jersey RC baptisms - each of those triptychs created 3 people in the great tree. I've spent a lot of time merging extended families.
What's sad is that the registers of many churches within that Archdiocese have never been indexed even once.
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