How do we engage the Ward Young in Indexing during the pandemic?

GalerGlennStephen

How do we engage the Ward Young in Indexing during the pandemic?

I am a newly called Temple and Family History Consultant and would like to put together a Youth Ward Indexing Challenge to engage our Ward Youth in Indexing. I would love to have others share what they have done to accomplish anything similar to this, especially given the challenges we face with the pandemic. Thank you in advance for sharing.

Dennis J Yancey

Looping in various Community Groups that are related.

@Engaging Youth in Family History​ 

@Indexing Chat​ 

 

also be aware of the Family Bible Preservation Project which is a great service project

http://yanceyfamilygenealogy.org/genealogical_service_project.htm

sggrabill1.5320580514623408E12

I had a similar question and pondered how to get them involved. I got the youth to participate in taking photos using the Billion Graves app. when I gave the class, adults were involved as well so they could be supportive of the youth.

Because so many of the records in indexing are in cursive, and could be quite intense with information, I taught them to transcribe headstones. There is no batch as in regular indexing so if they only did one, they did something. We had 15 members who were not indexing, transcribe records from the headstones....that is 15 more people donating and contributing to the work who were not already doing so! And that was about 1000 headstones made available as sources in FamilySearch.

 

If you are set on having the youth index using "regular" indexing, review some of the records that are available to be indexed. Marriage records lately only have 2 records in a batch, and they are typed. This would make it easy for those that are unable to read cursive, and the batch is workable.

sggrabill1.5320580514623408E12

In fact, just this afternoon in the fhc, I taught an 11 year Mea Duran how to transcribe headstones. Her father is the ward family history leader and was waiting for members to show up. She was "acting" busy on her cell phone, but I just asked if she would like to look at pictures and write what is on them. Although we have only started doing headstones that have only 1 name on them, we have made a start. She was reluctant to leave but was looking forward to doing more at home.

 

ctr sweetie

You might also consider enlarging the challenge to include any family history activity. So many activities can be done online, via a web conferencing tool, or while social distancing. (See the links on this page for activity ideas and links.) For those that find indexing challenging (e.g., handwriting), they can still be successful by doing other family history activities. There are so many fun options; the variety keeps it fresh and engaging and helps the youth recognize there are many ways to participate in family history.

 

Here are some fun and motivating videos that could launch such a challenge (Note: The audience for the following videos were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, FamilySearch products and tools, including indexing, is open to everyone.):

• The Time is Now: Youth on Family History
• The Time is Now: Youth Family History Conference
• 40-day Family History Challenge
• Indexing: A Family History "Mission"
• Getting Started With Indexing
• Catching the Vision: Youth Who Love Family History at RootsTech

 

Good luck with your challenge!

GalerGlennStephen

This is wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing. Great idea!!