how do i begin indexing
how do i begin indexing
Answers
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I would recommend starting by studying the General Indexing Guidelines as they provide information on what to do in different situations when indexing. Once you have familiarized yourself with those, I'd suggest starting to index with a batch labeled "Beginning" or "Intermediate" and reading through the project instructions for that batch, as well as looking through the examples to make sure you know how to correctly index the information. Once you've studied the guidelines and familiarized yourself with how to index documents from each batch that you work on, getting experience indexing is likely the most effective way to get better.
Those are just my suggestions, so different things might work better for you, but I hope this helps! :)
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You first will go here:
https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/my-indexing
Click on the blue "Find A Project" button.
This box will come up. What you will see may vary. Your checkout max is 10 batches across all projects.
There are project limits on all projects. This was started during COVID when we were all inside. Most projects today are limited to 4 batches. Small projects might be limited to 1 batch. Choose the number of batches you want by clicking on the drop-down box. then click the "Index" icon on the project you want. Once you choose the batch(es) to index, one of the batches will come up. Some projects have pop-up boxes to view before you're able to index.
Before you start indexing the batch, read the Project Instructions. The instructions are located at the bottom of the left-hand side of your image viewer or by the last box on your toolbar. You can access the instructions any time while indexing. Reading the instructions saves us reviewers a headache or two.
While you are on this screen, go to where it says "Step 1: Images". Click the down arrow and select "Step 2: Entries". Your screen will now look like this:
The purple question mark will appear above every field. This is Field Help. The hierarchy is Field Help/Project Instructions/General Indexing Guidelines if you have questions. The indexing guidelines are located in the instructions box.
You will index only the supplied fields even though there is more stuff to index on the documents. Ex: Joe's wife is Mary and she was born March 7, 1896 in London, England. In Naturalization projects, the only information on the spouse is the name, birth year and birthplace, even though her birth day is March 7.
The asterisks next to the field indicates that the field is required.
Once you are done indexing the batch, either click on the airplane icon or on "No: Submit Batch" that is located on the final entry of the final image.
This box will show up. This is when your batch is checked by the computer. If there are no errors, this box will come up. Click "Submit Batch."
If you have error(s), this box will come up. It shows the number of errors you have and will give you the chance to correct the error(s). Once the error(s) is fixed, the box above will appear and then you'll click "Submit Batch." Keep in mind that you can have error in fielfds even though the image above shows up. An error when that box shows up is something like "A" in the surname box instead of "Aaron." I recommend that you do the eyeball look over prior to submitting.
Once the batch is submitted, You will get the "Thank you" box with the option to either choose another batch in the same project or the next batch in your queue (checked out batches). Once a batch has been submitted, it cannot be retrieved and any error will be fixed when the batch is reviwed.
Right now—and this depends on your location and access—there aren't a lot of projects to choose from for indexing. Reviewing is the only option for a lot of projects and you are eligible for reviewing once you have indexed 1,000 batches across all projects.
There are also no beginner projects. Most Beginner projects are now indexed by AI. We do get beginner projects, but they are very few and far between. The best way to cut your teeth are on City Directories and Naturalizations, however, the only Nat projects that guarantees the option of indexing right now is 1 New England project. The New England projects are mostly hand-written and are often faded/obscured in other ways, so I don't recommend that project for you.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask and include the batch code in your post. As you can see above, the batch code for the examples is MQ5W-JS1. This will be a 7-digit alpha-numeric code and you can access this by the top of the indexing screen, Batch —> About Batch or by Help —> Share Batch.
You are more than welcome to take your time, but keep in mind the due date. The due date is GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) on the due date, which is 6:00 PM my local (Central) the day before. You can adjust this if you have a different time zone using any time zone converter.
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If you are looking for straight beginner indexing, try Billion Graves. It's pretty easy to do.
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