Issues with Indexing
I am seeing a lot of records in Latin America and the Philippines which are poorly indexed. They look like they could be the indexes created by computers, perhaps?
There are no relationships given. Sometimes not even a date. The task of researching through indexes where one cannot do a parent or spouse search is astronomical. It makes the indexing useless if no relationships are provided.
I just found an indexed record in Venezuela. No parents' names in the indexed record although there are parents in the document. No relationships. Just a bunch of first names including those of witnesses. I love that witnesses are being indexed, but they need to be indexed and labeled as a witness. How would I be able to find a christening for anyone when surnames may or may not be indexed? Or when her parents' names are not listed as parents' names?
I would rather there be no indexes made than indexes like this. The 1950 computerized indexing done when the 1950 census was first released was similar. The program couldn't read and process the names. (I realize the 1950 Census index published on the Federal Government website likely was unrelated to the FamilySearch indexing of it, but it is an example.) I do not think Artificial Intelligence (i.e. computers) can index records which are then helpful for genealogists. Without relationships, surnames, etc. they're not helpful.
Answers
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Perhaps you could provide some sample URLs to directly illustrate what you are seeing.
Many years ago I raised queries on the usefulness (or otherwise) of burial indexes without an age of death (when there was one shown in the original) and events indexed showing just the (English) county, without a clue as to the parish. You will probably be advised, as I was, that the lack of detail relates to the items the record custodian has given FamilySearch permission to index - and that very likely is the reason why the records are incomplete.
The manner in which you have described the records you have encountered have been indexed does seem to make some of the indexing work rather a waste of time, though. As I say, please share URLs or screenshots here.
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As far as the record being incomplete, I doubt that. It looks like the computer indexing software. When I worked at FamilySearch, it was being developed and they were using it to index Spanish speaking country records. At the time, it was not successful. So far I'm only seeing it in Spanish and Portuguese language areas.
Could be the batch was not checked. Could be that the batches had errors. As they are, they're not helpful to use.
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