Indexing of records

LegacyUser

Tony towers said: When a patron calls concerning indexing errors or other errors in a record, there are times when it is difficult to decern whether it is FS's fault or from the other genealogy program. It would be nice if there were some way to clearly indicate who did the indexing so that we could give proper instructions to the patron on how to proceed.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Welcome to the community-powered feedback forum for FamilySearch. FamilySearch personnel read every discussion thread and may or may not respond as their time permits. We all share an active interest in using the resources of this site and as users, we have various levels of knowledge and experience and do our best to help each other with concerns, issues, and/or questions.

There is no fault. Transcription errors happen for any number of reasons, so please do not try to place blame.

There are three types of indexes used with historical records: FamilySearch indexed (by volunteers using the indexing portion of the site or the app); Computer generated indexes (the only one that I know about is the GenealogyBank obituary collection, and it is clearly marked), and imported indexes (modified or not by FamilySearch).

Those that are imported need to be clearly marked so that a user knows who to contact to get an index corrected.

LegacyUser

Anthony Alexander Towers said: The question had nothing to do with blaming, please reread the question.

"if there were some way to clearly indicate who did the indexing so that we could give proper instructions to the patron on how to proceed."

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I would think that you might be on dodgy ground privacy wise. If I signed up to do indexing (which I haven't) I don't expect to see my name visible to anyone who cared to give me "proper instructions".

As I understand it, the (FS) indexing process is supposed to do some sort of quality assurance. That should mark the limit of any feed-back directly to the indexing patron. Feed-back after that point (and there is plenty!) should be to the indexing project concerned. One of the aspects is that it becomes clear that, while the results have serious problems in them, the individual indexers have faithfully done exactly what they have been asked to do. In such circumstances it's totally inappropriate for feedback to go to the indexer.

So for privacy and process reasons, I have to say that I don't think this is a good idea.

LegacyUser

Gordon Collett said: I think the question is more directed to the question of should the person who found the error in the index pester FamilySearch, Ancestry, My Heritage, Genealogy Bank or some other entity who arranged for the actual indexing to get it corrected, not that there was any intent to contact the individual who did the indexing.

This came up recently in another post in which someone had a concern about an error in the Find-A-Grave index and was told that FamilySearch can't do anything about those and the person would have to contact Find-A-Grave. With some collections it is obvious that it is not a FamilySearch index. With others, it can be hard to tell what corporation actually created the index.

The only instruction intended in the original suggestion is "This collection was created by Indexing-R-Us, please give them a call with your concern." This sounds like a helpful idea to me.

LegacyUser

Anthony Alexander Towers said: Thanks for your reply, Your statement " With others, it can be hard to tell what corporation actually created the index." is exactly what I'm concerned about. It would be great if the engineers or who ever is involved in making these kinds of records available to our patrons, would indicate who has digitized the records and has FS added anything to them. This would be enormously helpful, and save a huge amount of time on our part. I tried to post an image (PNG) to show the issue, but it would not load. (small file, so it should have worked)

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: If indeed that's the intention, that does sound - at first glance - reasonable.

For me (and I suspect Tom), the phrase "if there were some way to clearly indicate who did the indexing so that we could give proper instructions to the patron on how to proceed" meant something different - specifically we the person who finds the issue give instructions to the patron who did the indexing on how to proceed - i.e. don't do X or Y...

The reason that I inserted "at first glance" in my first sentence here - after some thought - is that I believe that FS is responsible for whatever appears on its site. Doesn't mean they are the person / organisation who failed if there is an issue, just that FS needs to take responsibility for error / issue handling. I am willing to be persuaded either way but there is an argument that says, "Nothing to do with us - talk to FindMyPast" is an abdication of responsibility by FS.

Now, the counter to my contention that it's an abdication, is that FS may be ill-equipped to explain to FMP that X is not Y, whereas the person who found that issue is ideally placed to explain that to FMP.

However, the counter to that counter (I am trying to think this through!) is that the person who found that issue may not be an FMP customer so can't raise a call on FMP. (This I think is the biggest issue in attempting to raise a call on someone else - the other company saying, "Who is this person? They're not our customer, FS are our customer and they're not complaining...")

LegacyUser

Anthony Alexander Towers said: Ok everyone, I'm sorry I raised the question in the first place. All I wanted was to know if there was some way that an indexed record could be Id'd as to whether it came from FS or from one of our third party associates and if FS had altered any of the info. This would help us as Family History Missionaries to give correct guidance to a patron concerning an error, and what path they should take. I'm not interested in what person did the indexing and never have been, I'm only interested where the indexed record came from, us, or one of our associates or a combination of both.
An indexed record from FS in most cases is easily discernable, not so much the others.

LegacyUser

MaureenE said: The "Find A Grave Index" collection does say that the Index is courtesy of Find A Grave, at the top of the collection description
https://www.familysearch.org/search/c...
"Index courtesy of Find A Grave, an expansive family history database of records and images from the world's cemeteries. This collection provides limited indexed data only; for a much richer user experience, including access to photographs, portraits, biographies, and stories, follow the link on the record and visit findagrave.com."

"British Newspaper Archive, Family Notices" collection
https://www.familysearch.org/search/c...
At first reading I thought there was an implication that the index was provided by Findmypast, although it didn't specifically say so

"Description
A collection of marriage and birth notices found in different British Newspapers. This collection comes from The British Newspaper Archive, and is a collaborative project with FindMyPast.com."

However at the bottom of the description it then said "Records extracted by FamilySearch and images digitized by FindMyPast" which more implies to me that FamilySearch did the Index
The associated Wiki page for this last collection does NOT provide the information as to who provided the Index
https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/...

Perhaps the wording "collaborative project" has some specific FamilySearch meaning?

Another collection British Newspaper Archives, Obituaries
https://www.familysearch.org/search/c...
"Description
A collection of obituaries found in the British Newspaper Archives. This is a collaborative project with FindMyPast.com."

Down the bottom of the description the wording in fact differs
"Records extracted by FindMyPast and images digitized by FamilySearch".
This does imply Findmypast provided the Index

I would have thought "British Newspaper Archive, Family Notices" and "British Newspaper Archives, Obituaries" would be identical in source, so it's unclear to me whether the difference shown is a genuine difference or not,

However as a general rule, my impression over the years is that the FamilySearch attitude with Historical records is take what is on offer but don't expect any information which explains what is there, or more importantly what is nor there. In my view FS does not consider this information is important.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: The following is in the original post

it is difficult to decern whether it is FS's fault or from the other genealogy program.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I understand what you are attempting to determine -- not whose at fault, but where the index originated -- in other words, if it was not produced by FamilySearch, then who did produce it.

In most cases, the origin of the index is indicated if it is not FamilySearch, but not always. For instance the "Social Security Death Index" should be self-explanatory. It was produced by the United States Social Security Administration.

In one case, an index is produced by another iste, but FamilySearch has modified it. This happens to be the Find a Grave index, wherein FamilySearch has (erroneously) added a burial year. The Find a Grave record (on their site) does not have a burial year on any of the memorials.

Right now, most (but not all) indexes produced by FamilySearch volunteers will provide the means by which parts of the index can be corrected. This is a new feature (less than a year old) and the kinks are still being worked out.

FamilySearch does not have the resources to correct errors in the indexes and therefore is leaving us users that task.

However, gross index errors (those impacting most of the entries in a record set) need to be reported in this feedback forum so that the error can be corrected for the records in that index.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Your last sentence appears sadly correct. For all sorts of reasons, I'm sure.

ECameron27

With some records you can Edit indexing errors as the above shows.

If you have an indexing error give us the name and code of the Batch so we can help. There are many indexing instructions for every Batch. If the whole Batch is indexed wrong then Family Search needs your feedback in order to correct the mistake. Family Search is responsible for helping indexers.