Let Indexers Choose their Own Projects
I have found many records from 1750-1830s here on familysearch, but they are not indexed nor transcribed -- For example "Register of free persons of color; slave records (affidavits of people bringing slaves into the state of Georgia) 1818-1836" which has a wealth of family history information especially valuable to people of color whose families come from the South -- Yet when I go to the indexing options it's "Bureau of Land Management Tract Books" or Naturalization records, which is all and well and somebody needs them but they are not my priority and not the priority of many other people.
Why can't we add names and create an index as we read through or something? I know there needs to be checks and balances and copy editing, but we should be able to do some of it on our own and have it be useful to the world.
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There is a new option being rolled out, slowly, to edit every field that will allow what you want to a certain extent. There is some discussion of it in this thread. https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/503057#Comment_503057 and a few others.
One obstacle - not all record sets CAN be indexed. Sometimes the record holders (the city, state, church, or country that is the source of the record) may have permitted FamilySearch to film/photograph the records to preserve them but did not grant permission for the records to be indexed.
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Would it be possible to have some sort of note when entering the collection or batch that the owner allowed only filming and not indexing?
I have to very very strongly agree with the original poster. My research focus tends to be narrow and I even do my own indexing in spreadsheets to help myself since a lot of the collections I reference have not been indexed yet.
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I'm not staff, Alexis, so I can't give you an official answer, but I would think that would be highly unlikely. Information about what contracts exist is never shared. When a contract ends, the only way we know is because the records just disappear.
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Back in the day, researchers would index local records and publish the index in a book. I think what you are asking is if we could do something like that today, on our own?
Would there be any problem with someone making an index, and then publishing it, perhaps on the web? Not under any association such as the Family History Department, or Genealogical society, but as a person.
Alternatively, could one go through the database mentioned above, and attach the record to the corresponding person page, creating a person page for those who do not have one? This would be a huge undertaking, but would be helpful for future generations as they compile their family trees.
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