How can I systematically index genealogical records in San Martín, Peru?
During my genealogical research, I have encountered many unindexed records. I am eager to contribute to the indexing process; however, I am uncertain about how to begin. Although I have contributed to various indexing projects for FamilySearch (Get Involved), I am particularly interested in developing a systematic approach to indexing the records I uncover during my investigations. I will focus on a specific geographical region of Peru that I am well-acquainted with: San Martín.
Answers
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The only records we can index in Family Search are the projects that Family Search has prepared and given us to index. Their acquisition of and permission to index records is ongoing. The records you'd like to index may very likely be available for indexing in the future.
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But the indexing process for any given project is completely under FS control - whatever the collection, you would just get random batch(es) to index or to review, and a predetermined set of project indexing instructions/metadata.
Your proposed systematic approach might be better aimed at publishing your own indexes online in collaboration with the relevant record custodians.
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I am also interested in the topic of how to be systematic - I have been focusing on Ecuador, which has no open indexing opportunities last I looked (via the website indexing projects - there's plenty of opportunities via the Get Involved app) but however there are a ton of Computer Aided Indexing that requires a lot of correcting.
It just seems extremely overwhelming to see the massive number of corrections needed. While many are simple corrections there are scattered within meant issues that need a bit more experience to untangle. I have a great deal of admission for everyone who has worked on indexing and correcting, for it seems a lot of volunteers have done an incredible amount of work.
Anyways, I recommend starting with the indexing projects on the website, because that really helped me get a feel for the handwriting. By focusing on a few pages at a time I could focus on understand the specific scribe's handwriting by looking at how they wrote their letters (especially capital letters) elsewhere on the page.
The more you do this then the faster you get. It's been 4 months or so for me, and now I can read names that look like gibberish to the rest of my family when I show it to them. I don't know at what point this changed for me, but I know that 4 months ago I'd feel very frustrated trying to read certain scribe's handwriting, and now I don't.
I'm confounded by the Search page. I search by the image group DGS number, to make my life simpler. But regardless the total numbers listed in the search filters seems contradictory or don't seem to get updated in a way I expect. I thought I could organize desired changes by province, sex, decade, etc; or by estimating the number of records expected given the number of pages in an image group. However, the further I dig into issues the more I find I have only more and more questions, and fewer and fewer answers.
Also, I found out that sometimes if I edit the record then it can delete the Principal person's surname (on the Search and Record pages only, not on the Edit Index page), and that requires I make an additional edit to the surname to make it show up again.
I figure I should focus on the worst issues first - the ones that would completely ruin someone's attempt to find their family. So not name typos, because Search can pull up names despite certain typos. Instead I focus on birth/death/etc dates - are they even in the correct century at all? I also focus on correct country for Place of Birth. An endless number of records have entirely the wrong century or country, and I think that seems like the best use of my effort.
One other thing: search a few of those in-indexed names and confirm they are truly in-indexed. When correcting a Guatemalan census I discovered there was a pre-existing historical index that was being replaced with the Computer Aided Index. I thought some pages were missing off the index, but turns out they existed via the pre-existing index.
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