Indexed records for Hille, Germany

Gerry Mitchell

I have been working from the microfilmed Hille Church records (FHL Films 470591 and 470592, also records 1815 to 1872) to add/correct entries in the FamilySearch shared family tree. When I try to find a source citation in the LDS German records database, I cannot find a citation - it appears that these church records have not been indexed.

I would be willing to work on indexing these records if indeed that has not been accomplished. How can I contact someone to see if this is possible?

Julia Szent-Györgyi

You can't: https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/can-i-make-an-indexing-request-for-records. No, offering to do it yourself doesn't help, unfortunately.

Given that those films are locked for me, I suspect those registers are paywalled somewhere, probably on Archion; perhaps an inquiry there would provide a place to share your efforts?

(This is just one illustration why FS's obfuscation of access conditions is …unfortunate. If you look at that catalog page with an LDS account, then presumably everything has a plain-old camera icon and it all looks fine and dandy. You have no idea that a non-LDS user like me sees something completely different and cannot view the images at all.)

Gerry Mitchell

Julia

Thank you for your response. From your response (suspicion), it appears that if the original records are restricted in some way, they cannot be indexed. As you say, unfortunate.

erutherford

FS must have a contract in place with the record holders in order for records to be indexed. In the 10 years I've been here, we've never been able to request records to be indexed, nor has FS offered the users to independently index outside of available projects.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

@Gerry Mitchell, restricted records can be indexed; it depends on the contract with the record custodian. There are countless entries in published indexes where the image was indexed but is unavailable for viewing. Because of the way indexing is structured on FS, where an indexing batch consists of a strictly limited set of images, randomly assigned, restrictions (either for privacy or for paywalls) are often waived, and there are also projects that are only available to those volunteers who have access rights to the images in question.

Regardless of such access considerations, however, users/volunteers cannot suggest or request indexing.

Gerry Mitchell

OK, Thank you.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

I've verified that the Hille Lutheran registers are LDS-only on FS because they're paywalled on Archion. I've also checked that yes, Archion has provision for user contributions.

Gerry Mitchell

Thank you for this additional information. I had heard of Archion, but have not not tried to use their resources. I went on line to their website to learn more - their passes to view church records are quite expensive. I saw that they had a forum for user discussions, but I did not see a link for things like indexing.