WHERE ARE THE PROJECTS?

samshicat

We've noticed a diminishing amount of projects to index and review. Are more coming or is AI indexing the projects and humans only should do reviewing in Name Review?

malcott

thanks for this question

erutherford

While we wait, the National Archives' Citizen Archivist, Billion Graves and From The Page always need volunteers.

samshicat

We found out that computer AI will do indexing and us humans will do its reviewing through four opportunities in GET INVOLVED. So no more projects for humans to do, just GET INVOLVED. It will be easier, less errors, and faster publishing of records.

MandyShaw1

'It will be easier, less errors, and faster publishing of records.'

Let's wait and see how well it works for each specific collection. What if the collection's metadata sets are incomplete or ill defined (they aren't great on several existing collections, as discussed on many threads here)? Or the images in the collection are less predictable than the rules need them to be?

Julia Szent-Györgyi

I recently had Google's AI earnestly tell me that tying a knot in a thread is a type of buttonhole, and there's a screenshot making the rounds of social media where an LLM states that water at 27 degrees F is liquid, so I Do Not Trust "Artificial Intelligence". I hope FS isn't falling for the hype and is instead concentrating on using computers for the things they're good at, such as sorting and collating, rather than the things that people are better at, such as pattern recognition and language.

erutherford

Just got off the phone with FS:

Indexing by humans is still happening. This will occur for a time and at some point in the future, there will be communication that FS is going to switch to full-time AI. The gentleman said it could be a day or a year from now. He does not know when, as the folks that handle phone indexing help have not been notified.

It sucks that FS dosesn't have much right now, but you can still index/transcribe at the sites I mentioned. If you are a WWII nerd like me, you will love From The Page. The Library of Virginia has a ton of Army, Navy and Marine Corps discharge records along with WWII Dead Questionnaires.

Please also remember that RootsTech is coming up in early March and it's quite possible that FS is holding projects back.

erutherford

I found another one yesterday. Freedom on the Move is the transcribing of runaway slave ads. It's a smooth program from what I've done so far, but be mindful that if you have issues with text size and/or color, it may be a little difficult to use.

leslie jean moore

I am so sad that indexing has abandoned us and gone to AI. It used to be the great start to my day!

David Alan Webber

I might have to try these others that have been recommended by erutherford.

LoisHoutman

My family and I have been delighted with the experience Family Search has given provided as we research our Genealogy here.

For the past 5 years I have enjoyed indexing records here at Family Search. I recently hit the 1 million mark. I did a lot of the 1950 census for the two counties I had lived in. Now I can see "my people" attaching things. It seems I am related to about 80 percent of the people in one county.

Several years ago I did Oregon death records, and was able to find the death records for my great aunts and uncles. I saved the images. They can be useful in medical appointments.

Like most of you, I also indexed many English church records, and local and state government records from the United States. I downloaded stained glass pictures from the various churches I was indexing records from, and used that as my computer wallpaper. I listened to medieval and traditional music online often during the hours I did not index.

I will miss the opportunity to participate in the lives of other people who will benefit from my indexing. It has been rewarding and interesting.

I would caution Family Search to continue to include an emotionally rewarding element in the volunteer indexing experience. I do not get any feeling of emotional connection when I hit an accept button for a name on a random page from a random state. The ability to choose content and location has been very important to me. There are many of us here in North America that are related to other North Americans, and most of the UK. They are "our people."

Before we discovered this site, and began indexing here, we corrected OCR versions of the historic newspapers from the 1800's and 1900s in California, the state where one of my parents was born and lived.

If you want to practice OCR correction, California is one of the best states to start with.

My family and I have systematically corrected death, birth and marriage notices in the California newspaper from the small town where my father was born. So genealogy opportunities do exist at these sites.

There may be more states available than I list here. If I am not allowed to list the website addresses, here is the list of state names:

You can volunteer to correct text for historic newspapers in the following states: California, Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.

California https://cdnc.ucr.edu/

Colorado https://coloradohistoricnewspapers.org

Indiana https://ncph.org/project/hoosier-state-chronicles/

Michigan https://digmichnews.cmich.edu

Virginia https://virginiachronicle.com

Washington State https://washingtondigitalnewspapers.org

Wyoming https://wyomingnewspapers.org

When they eventually switch to OCR here I will try to participate. I get much more out of performing a genealogy task than correcting old newspaper stories.

Let's enjoy ourselves as we help others!

Katherine Huie

A program is only as good as the programmer. And what is the cost of this "efficiency"? Because records may have different parameters to index would there be a lot of tweaking of the app.? How many programmers will you have to hire?