Why is there no box in each entry for important Other Information?
I cannot find an earlier question on this topic. I am a beginner at this indexing for FamilySearch but an experienced amateur genealogist and occasional transcriber. I am currently transcribing or indexing: Ireland, Down—Church Records, 1740–1913 [Part A][M3Z5-9XB]. This two pages of burial names provides the townland for each deceased. This is rare and vital information for a family historian working on Irish records. However, I cannot record it anywhere on the entry.🙁
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Townland is very important - I agree - but to answer your question ... There is no 'important other information' box in any indexing project.
The project administrators and record custodians apparently come to agreement on what fields are included and the status/searchability of the produced index. Since townland/place is not included in the project/batch - this means researchers will need to examine all similarly named persons without the advantage of knowing the place - if the collection name doesn't sufficiently narrow place - until they examine the record image. The researcher can then note place in their notes and in the person's Tree profile if they attach it. Unfortunately this won't help subsequent researchers also sort search results unless display of the tree attachment icon occurs properly (sometimes there are problems with these icons).
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Thoughts from a volunteer, not associated with FamilySearch, who has been indexing for almost a decade:
The digital images all contain alot of microdata. Some of that data can waypoint the images to a certain location. So, you do not physically have to enter the data, the image already has that attached to it. In post indexing and pre-publication, the programmers can also add to or clean up the records. There is quite a bit of work that goes into this project from forging agreements, to digitizing, to developing the instructions and entry forms, to batching, to indexing, to review, to pre-publication work. I am sure there are more steps that we don't even know about! Indexers are an important cog in a large wheel.
FamilySearch does not own all of these records and oftentimes the records belong to an affiliate partner. Almost a decade ago, these partnerships were created so that more records could be made available to the general public, the agreement was that what was freely received would be freely given. However, there could be restrictions on what the owners would allow to be displayed; It might be forever, other times is could be for a limited time. Here is a link that explains Viewing Restrictions:
There is a FamilySearch Wiki page where you can read a lot more about these collections. When you see a $ sign beside a collection, it doesn't belong to FamilySearch. It would be a horrible business model for these multi-billion dollar corporation to provide all these records free of charge, and also for the countries to counties that charge a fee to get records. Thus, the indexes don't always seem to be complete. There are many dollar signs next to Ireland's records. Here's a link to online databases: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Ireland_Church_Records
Hope that helps and that you find indexing more interesting as you proceed. Sometimes you just need to find the right project!
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I was very happy to see that FamilySearch was indexing the RC registers from Ireland. We have indexes on other sites, but it never hurts to have access through a different search engine.
Just recently, I've been getting hints from some of the registers that have been indexed. Sadly, the displayed extract includes neither parish nor county. For a common surname, that index is useless. Images are only available at FHC or Affiliate Library locations.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:66MG-ZSNP
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Aine,
I'm new to indexing in Familysearch and I cannot explain why the organisation would be happy to present that information in such a limited way. It may be to do with the way they hold the original information and limitations in how their databases can be accessed. Perhaps more experienced indexers or a FamilySearch representative can explain. I have just remembered that the three or four sheets of pages I have partially transcribed or indexed to date do not tell me which church register they are from in County Down as each page or double page is given a generic County Down title with a wide date range. This makes the indexing work less interesting, if not actually a bit boring. Naturally I like to learn something and benefit from work like this myself as well as helping others.
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The displayed extract is not consistent. Some parishes are shown. Even some church names are listed. There are even sponsors on some; very helpful. Maybe (I HOPE) it's a work in progress, and we will see more of the information as the project is completed.
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Typically what I have noticed in the Ireland projects I have worked on - marriage and death records don't include place - but birth/baptism do. As far as whether post-indexing processes include such 'other information' - as mentioned - one can only hope...
$ next to records give me mixed feelings ... Thus I fully support FamilySearch's goal of public, freely available records - many of which only exist because of their diligence imaging over many many years... But yes many of the image restrictions at FamilySearch are due to record custodians charging a fee under some other provider/contract/system. In those situations I'm glad to see even a partial index even if there are no images...reference to the current fee based access is helpful in these cases...
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To be clear - I was not complaining about no images. The images are freely available on several other sites. My point about images only being available at an FHC or Affiliate is that, with no parish or county information in the index, there is no easy way to know if the record might belong to my Patrick Hughes or any one of 100 born the same decade.
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