FYI for the mods--Illinois Nats Part D
Illinois Nats Part D is not accepting any race other than what is in the drop-down menu. This is my current batch and Image 2 will not accept the petitioner's German race.
MQKJ-CQ7
Answers
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German is not a race, even if that is what is on the form; People of German descent are probably Caucasian. If you cannot leave the field blank or unknown, then select Caucasian.
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I've been indexing for ten years and know more than a few things, especially with Nats.
We do not assume anything about any project. We weren't there at the time of the document, so we don't know the petitioner's color or race. If it's not there, we don't index it. Assuming things leads to headaches for reviewers, because we have to fix the mistakes done by indexers.Plus, there's this from the Color or Race Field Help in all of the current Nats projects with the exceptions being New York and New England, which do not ask for the Color/Race:
If the color or race is not found in the drop-down list, type what you see.Older PETs, from 1930 to1940-ish, has the just race listed on the document. For Nat purposes, the race is Hebrew, German, Scotch, etc., the color is Caucasian, Black, Alaskan Native, etc. because we index what it was at the time of the document.
Every other Nat project—including Part C of Illinois nats—allows for races, like German, to be indexed. This might have been an oversight when putting the part together, and that's why the mods were alerted.
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@erutherford I can see that German is not in the drop down list, but I can type it into the field. I have not tried submitting it. Is that where it gets hung up for you?
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When I type German and go to the next Field, German disappears. I tried it on a few more batches and got the same result. On the Quality Check, I get this error message Color or Race. This field is a required field.
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On Image 2 of this batch, the reviewer put White instead of Finnish.
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Is it still happening? I just did a batch that had German as the race. I was able to type it in the field and submit it.
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I cleared my cache and cookies, restarted and tried again. The not-listed Race still disappears.
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Edited: I can see what is happening now. I was in part C. Part D does not let you type in the Race field, just as you said. I'll send this in to be investigated.
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I was about to agree with you, but as @erutherford clarifies, it is all about how the columns on the forms were headed at that time. So, you and I might disagree with the terminology according to how we apply it today - particularly the definition of "Race", but in indexing these older documents, the rule is to record what is seen in the document, rather than what is accepted practice today.
As an example, "Scotch" has never been an acceptable term for a person of Scottish origin (even though it was used by the novelist Thomas Hardy as such!), but one cannot disagree that if a form with a heading "Race" included an individual listed as "Scotch" that is exactly what the indexer should record.
(BTW - if anyone would wish to argue over the definition of Race nowadays - especially in the U.S. - I would advise reading the article at https://www.verywellmind.com/difference-between-race-and-ethnicity-5074205. So, speaking of the "German race" today would be not be accepted practice.)
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This problem has been fixed. Thank you for reporting it.
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