I am very curious. Can anyone share with me the value of indexing the business directories projects?
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In addition to Adrian Bruce's answer, there are many processes that are done in the background of indexing. Here is an interesting article from FS Wiki on Waypointing. https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/FamilySearch_Wiki:WikiProject_Waypointing
Indexing is simply a way to create searchable text so a researcher can find the image with their ancestor's name. Once they have done that, they will be able to see the image and the other information on the films.
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By the time they get out into the Historical Records, they definitely must have a place and year - otherwise it's a waste of space, as you suggest. I thought I'd seen it written out that the place and year are added after the indexing, as what's termed meta-data, because the whole of a directory has a common place and year. (That's a bit moot with places in directories, so I remain slightly concerned with that idea).
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That makes sense. Thank you so much for explaining that. After indexing hundreds of names from pages without location or dates I couldn't see how it would be helpful. But I kept telling myself if these directories weren't helpful FamilySearch would not be posting these projects.
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I would still agree that many of the projects have proved not to be too useful, with such vague detail. I frequently come across indexed church records that show no parish and, admittedly more rarely, are not even added to the correct collection - so there is no clear idea of the location of the event concerned.
Even in cases where there is a link to the actual image, if these are restricted (e.g. can only be viewed at a FHC) this is generally of no use to those of us affected by FHC closure at this period in time.
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