Indexing

BrayKayMarie1

Whilst reviewing a record from a Gibraltar Death record, I noticed that the brother of the deceased was the person notifying about the death.

Unfortunately there was nowhere to add this information, only 'parents'. Is there a way to allow the person indexing or reviewing to add relations other than a parent.

By not having this possibility, vital information could being missed.

Paul W

Even though I do not participate in indexing myself, I would think the answer to this is quite straightforward. The indexer would follow project instructions, which would mean the informant would be indexed if this formed part of the instructions. Obviously, where there is no "Informant" field for such an input to be made, of course the indexer would not have the ability to record this information.

It is always a disappointment to find a project does not allow (has not allowed) for all available data to be indexed (especially in your example - or perhaps it might involve the age at death). However, the record custodian might have imposed restrictions on what FamilySearch is permitted to index - especially if this would lead to the researcher having to pay the former for a full copy / transcription of the record!

I have often shared your disappointment, in not being able to access detail from an indexed only (no image) FamilySearch record that I know to be included in the original document. But we have to accept an index is primarily a finding aid and it often needs that second step of obtaining / paying for a copy of the original piece if fuller details are required.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

Indexing is a balancing act between speed and usefulness. Every field added to an indexing project is another thing that the indexer has to find and interpret on the image and type into the indexing tool, increasing the time it takes to complete the index and make it available for people to use.

Will the identity of the informant sometimes be useful information? Undoubtedly. Would that information help people find the records they want? Maybe, sometimes. Is that chance for usefulness enough to warrant the extra time and effort of including such a field? Probably not.