Living or Deceased at birth.

Alejandra Perry

I was doing a batch for birth records and noticed there was no place to put whether or not the child was deceased on record. This could be very helpful to know, or to have the option.

Chas Howell

The purpose of an Index is to help find the record/image. Once it is found then all the information it contains is available to the viewer.

Paul W

@Alejandra Perry

Assuming your issue relates to a batch you were / are indexing, your query would be better placed within the "Indexing" category of this (Community) forum. In posting to Indexing you should add a batch number, to help fellow indexers to identity the exact nature of your problem.

Incidentally, I am intrigued as to what the issue might actually be! I wonder in what type of record you would need to / have a problem in identifying the status (deceased or living) of a child? I can only think of a child being born stillborn, but maybe I'm way off the mark here.

Paul W

@Chas Howell

Strictly speaking, you are correct in making this comment. However, assuming the poster is anxious (subject to project instructions / permissions) to index as much detail as possible from the record, I think it is important that she should be encouraged to do so. There are many collections on FamilySearch that do not have a connecting image, which might be difficult to view (or a copy of the original obtained) from any source. So, your "Once it is found..." comment is often a case of "If it can be found...", hence the need to index as much detail as you can.

Chas Howell

Right Paul W, the more detail indexed on projects where the user does not have the ability to see the image is a big benefit. I can't remember indexing a project that allows for much in the way of adding extra helpful data. I understood the poster was requesting a change in the project template where the image would be available. That possibly was an incorrect assumption on my part. Now where the image will be available the more detail indexed of data that does not substantially impact the finding often unnecessarily slows the project down.