Tired of Indexers not following simple rules.
Have been mostly Reviewing Naturalization forms. Now doing Illinois [Part D]. Almost 100 percent of the time they keep on entering (Male) when they shouldn't be. Before anyone indexes Naturalization or other projects for the first time, they should be put to the test to confirm they are ready. There are many more issues, but I don't have time to put down every single one.
Answers
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This has been going on for basically, ever. I've made a handful of posts about this, and how to index them correctly. I've also posted about reading the PI, GIG and Field Helps. Either indexers don't read them, partially read them or just don't care. I haven't seen a beginner batch in quite a while. I think the last one was Tennessee Death Records and some of those were screwed up or even so badly indexed that it was better to send the batch back for reindexing, so new indexers have to go for, at least, Intermediate batches without knowing how to index them. Beginner batches hone an indexer's skills so they came move up to Intermediate. Something like 1,000 Beginner batches should be the mark to where new indexers can access Intermediate batches.
I think they should bring back feedback on batches. That helped me a ton when I first started out, but that was jettisoned when they switched to web indexing full-time. How else are new indexers going to learn?1 -
I am more than just a little aggravated when I see batches returned for indexing when I know they were done properly to begin with. I just ran into a few of them just now.
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Dunno about the naturalizations and such, but in the Hungarian project, people generally ignore the instructions because they disagree with them. I'm of two minds on this: on the one hand, I sympathize with wanting to stick the surname in for the child even if it's only recorded for the parents, because I've come up against Search - Record's literal-mindedness — but on the other hand, does it really ever hurt anyone not to put in the sex, if it's not recorded? (You may think Toni must be male and Béla must be female, but you'd be wrong, if you were indexing Hungarian records.)
In the Slovakian project, I return any non-tabular Latin batches, even though I'd be perfectly able to do them, because I can't abide the thought of indexing all of those genitives for the parents' names. I know that if I follow the instructions and index Johannes filius Georgii Szabo with father's given name = Georgii, there will be a clueless researcher somewhere down the line who will see this as proof that his ancestor was called Georgie.
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I do that sometimes too. For example: (1) When it is written Poland Russia, I eliminate Russia because it took over Poland. (2) I do not enter Polish for a color or race when their birthplace was Poland.
I also wish the instructions about Certificates of arrival were clearer. Example: Should we just completely ignore them? Sometimes the state puts the names on the main form. I have to index those.
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Why are you omitting Poland? We index what it was at the time of the document. If it was Poland Russia on the document, you index Poland Russia. It may be Russia in 2024, but at the time of the document, it was Poland Russia. If Polish was the race, and the color is not there, Polish is indexed. Same with German, Hebrew, Scandinavian, etc.
With the exceptions of Alaska and Ohio Part A, Certificates of Arrivals are not indexed. It literally says that in the PI:
Do not index affidavits of witnesses, certificates of arrival, certificates of loyalty, examination records, or naturalization cards in this project.Nothing is taken from the Certificate to be indexed.
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