Why not tackle the Church membership records problem at the core?
FamilySearch inquiry
Hi, I am with the South African indexing group and my mother language is Afrikaans. I hope you will understand me when you have read this.
I read that most reviewers are struggling with the church membership records. The record inscription book itself doesn't suggest the country or province where the baptism is taking place, only the town, but we all know that. If you go back to see where the batch for the specific records are stored in, you might find that they've typed South Africa but not from which province. Go back further to where all the batches were stored, it is typed South Africa, not the province. I will attach a ex-sample of what I mean after this letter.
In stead of hundreds of people struggling to type the province and the country in, why not attack the problem at the core? Whether the problem starts in South Africa or in any other country for that matter, the core should be corrected and updated. If this is not done now, the problem will last forever, or until there are no church records anymore and this is not even a matter for discussion.
Family see it in their vital records and get frustrated when they see their membership event was in America, Greece, or any other country than South Africa and you FamilySearch, gets the blame all the time. It is not fair and it's degrading for you who help almost the whole world to keep their valuable records.
How does the saying goes, if you don't know something, you are stupid for ever. But if you find out about something and do something about it, you were stupid for just a little while.
Thank you for your time to read this, I hope it will be of help
Hester
