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Why are there so few indexing projects to work on?

BennionCD
BennionCD ✭
December 26, 2022 edited August 16, 2024 in Get Involved/Indexing

I look for English, beginner and intermediate projects to work on, but right now there are only 3 projects that show up to work on. I'm surprised there aren't a lot more projects.

1

Answers

  • erutherford
    erutherford ✭✭✭✭✭
    December 26, 2022

    It depends on who Family Search has contracts with. It also takes time for projects to become available for indexing. We do not know when new projects will drop, so keep checking back.

    0
  • slotbuddy
    slotbuddy ✭✭✭
    December 29, 2022

    I would never have believed that the familysearch would "hold back" projects but suddenly today up popped projects from Texas that were beginner and intermediate level and they were already half to nearly completely done. Where have they been all this time that they should just now show up. I've been on every day looking for projects and nothing from Texas was on before this.

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  • erutherford
    erutherford ✭✭✭✭✭
    December 29, 2022

    That depends on how long it's been since you've been on. When I logged off at 11:30 last night, the Grimes County Marriage project was at 7%, now at 11:10 am, it's 29%. It's not a case of FS "holding back" records, it's when you check for new projects. You won't catch every project at 0%.

    0
  • slotbuddy
    slotbuddy ✭✭✭
    December 29, 2022

    I am on most of the day and check for something to index or review. I wasn't expecting to find a project at 0% but I didn't expect to find new projects well under way the first time they showed up. I am retired and indexing/reviewing helps me pass the time especially when we were having this bitter cold weather here and it was too cold to go outside.

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  • LindaMoyes
    LindaMoyes ✭
    January 12, 2023

    Are there low numbers because indexing is being phased out in favor of computer technology which can "read" the records?

    2
  • airland
    airland ✭✭
    January 12, 2023 edited January 13, 2023

    Please, please, please, can we have something to index besides Ireland!!! It has been like this for well over a year.

    1
  • Jane Cantrell Brookman
    Jane Cantrell Brookman ✭✭
    January 13, 2023

    @airland Are you running into a particular problem while indexing records from Ireland?

    0
  • Maile L
    Maile L ✭✭✭✭✭
    January 13, 2023

    Please know that your concerns about the availability of indexing projects have been heard and reported to the appropriate team. I will definitely let you know when I hear back.

    Maile 🙂

    2
  • roscoe
    roscoe ✭
    January 13, 2023

    why are there not more batches to index? we now have two and they are checked out

    so we have nothing to index except difficult from foreign countries.

    0
  • Mary Rice
    Mary Rice ✭✭✭
    January 14, 2023

    @BennionCD I hear what you are saying. I am likewise retired and rely on Indexing/Reviewing for the main activity of my day. I started Indexing 8 years ago. At that time there were 40-50 beginning/intermediate projects to do daily. But I noticed after a couple years that projects were decreasing except for Advanced. I decided that if I were to continue I needed to teach myself skills needed for these Advanced projects. There are many resources at FamilySearch, BYU Languages site, and on Google and other search engines to be able to learn enough to do the projects. I have learned to read 16th-17th century English documents including Latin, Micronesian records, Philippine records, Puerto Rican records, and currently South African Dutch and Afrikaans church records. The resources are online if you'd like to continue Indexing and have the time to learn. Good Luck!

    0
  • erutherford
    erutherford ✭✭✭✭✭
    January 14, 2023

    The National Archives Citizen Archivist Mission is another good indexing site.

    1
  • Mary Rice
    Mary Rice ✭✭✭
    January 15, 2023

    @erutherford Thanks for the NARA Citizen Archivist resource. I just briefly looked it over. I see there is a Search box. Can you be more specific about how this site can help to index our projects?

    0
  • erutherford
    erutherford ✭✭✭✭✭
    January 15, 2023

    It's just another site if you're looking to index/transcribe or love history like I do. I'm currently doing Confidential Cablegrams sent from General Pershing during WWI.

    1
  • roscoe
    roscoe ✭
    January 17, 2023

    will there be more batches available or is indexing about done. I am not doing

    foreign countries.

    0
  • Marian Frost
    Marian Frost ✭
    January 18, 2023 edited January 18, 2023

    It would be nice to be able to help with all the Ireland records, but they are so hard to read I keep returning the batches. I look every once in a while to see if there is something I can index......no luck

    0
  • Janna Mauldin Heiner
    Janna Mauldin Heiner ✭
    March 6, 2023

    @erutherford Oh, wow, those must be interesting!

    @Mary Rice I love your perspective.

    I was also surprised at how few there were to do, but given how indexing has grown and how many people are doing it now, I assumed we'd worked through the backlog in the church's possession and were now waiting for things to be offered to us (contracted). As for projects being half-through when they first show up, that's an indicator that indexers around the world are at work! I was indexing a 90%-done project yesterday with only three records per batch, very very simple--and in between my 7th and 8th batches it wrapped up and disappeared! Yeah for all the people working so hard!

    @roscoe I assume you mean you won't do records in languages you don't understand? I get that. I speak a fair bit of Spanish (was fluent in my younger years) and still sometimes find the Spanish records confusing. (In fact, yesterday I returned a batch of land records because I couldn't quite sort out a bit of the instructions!)

    0
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