Hello I am reviewing a list of people intending to be naturalized in Wisconsin from different countr

Paul V Curtis

Hello I am reviewing a list of people intending to be naturalized in Wisconsin from different countries. The different countries from seemed to be assumed but the column is not marked clearly as such. Please take a look at record and tell me if you

would enter country as a possible birthplace or with a question mark? US, Wisconsin—County Naturalization Records, 1807–1992 [Part A][M9PK-88V] Thank you.

Paul

Melissa S Himes

Hi Paul! Thanks for sharing your batch, and asking a great question! We had this discussion just yesterday in @Indexing Chat​. My first reaction was they should not be indexed because the column header is missing and we don't really know what that column represents. Obviously, your indexer felt the same and marked the birthplace blank, except in that one interesting record where they indexed Ireland.

However, @Heather R Jacobs​, made an excellent discovery that the first image of the Register of Citizenships (which is not indexed as the example), shows that the column header after the name is indeed NATIVITY! (I learned a valuable lesson from this - to click on every example, and not think that the How to Index example is the same image!) She also copied the project instructions and underlined the words that bring light to the subject: If a naturalization register does not show column headings, check the column headings on the previous or next images to see what information each column contains. If the previous and next images do not show column headings, the sample images may give you an idea of what each column refers to. After checking the previous and next images and the sample image, if you are not sure what the columns refer to, then use your best judgment to determine whether to index the information or to mark the fields blank. After considering what Heather posted, I would index those places in the Birthplace field!