Adding Nationality/Race to the search engine and to records
Comments
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A van Helsdingen said: Only a limited number of records recorded "race", and in many countries this was never recorded- it is mostly found in American records and in multi-ethnic countries. For example in most European countries "race" was never recorded, and instead religion was recorded on some types of records. There probably isn't enough records to justify FamilySearch spending resources on this, and the very nature of race may make it a controversial project.0
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Lundgren said: Some of our records and collections do have this data.
An example is the 1940 census.
There is a defect that has caused us to have to turn this off currently. Once that is resolved, we will re-enable the functionality where possible.0 -
Adrian Bruce said: A non-LDS example of potential pitfalls is the 1910 US Census for a family linked to me, where Ancestry has indexed the family as "Race = Octoroon". In fact, the Race on the form is "OT" for "Other" - and the actual race is written in the margin, as it should be, I think, as "Hindoo".
Getting that incorrect index isn't just a simple error, as Octoroon was one of those viciously pedantic categories designed to ensure as far as possible that people with a measurable trace of non-white blood would not be categorised as White. To use it implies that the 1910 Federal Census used such terminology - so far as I remember when checking up - it didn't.0 -
Debra George said: The USA census records beginning with the 1870s indicate nationality or race. Having the ability to characterize a search with this info would be a great help. Nationality also, i.e., Canadian, Swiss, Germanic, etc. This would help reduce sort through massive quantities of records that aren't related. When individuals came the US through Ellis Island, their nationality was listed. Also, it would be a feature that could be used or left empty. It would be the users choice. Having that information for searches is a powerful tool as I have learned using other genealogical sites.0
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Tom Huber said: Something that came out in the excellent PBS' Finding Your Roots series is that mixed ancestry persons' ancestors can be or are listed with a different race, depending upon the culture at the time and location (United States -- I can't speak for other countries).
Thus, it is entirely possible that when race is included, the user will need to be cognizant of what went on, largely after the civil war, during reconstruction, and the horrid Jim Crow period.0 -
MaureenE said: When the main group of India index records https://www.familysearch.org/search/c... were released on FamilySearch, some (a minority) of the FS records stated race WHITE. However, when you look at the actual images this is never written on the original records, and there was no field for race to be entered, so this field appearing in the FamilySearch record is totally an assumption, and is FALSE from the point of view of recording what the original record says.
Very occasionally in the original record there might be a comment about mixed race etc, but I have never seen this information recorded on FamilySearch.0 -
Adrian Bruce said: Which is exactly why I an instinctively opposed to incorporating Race as a searchable index. Too many assumptions are and have been made, creating possibilities for really upsetting people. Just imagine if people appeared in those collections labelled "white" when in fact they were mixed race Christians.0
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Debra George said: When a nationality is listed on the original document, that should be the only time it should be shown. Also, in census records I have found a number of incorrect nationality/race assignments. Ancestry allows one to add corrections to such records. They don't replace info but the correction is show with the record. There is no panacea for such determinations. But as an aid in record review, it has been extremely helpful.0
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What is the significance of the "flag" icon attached to person listed on a family tree? Example - a Union Jack, Scottish, Italian flag. What is their significance, who attached them, on what grounds, and where on the site are these explained? Can I slap a flag on anyone I choose?
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Do you mean the flags that some people use as a portrait? Those are put on by some users on profiles they work on when the profile has no photograph. Generally they are the current flag of the country where the person was born. They are not explained anywhere on the site because FamilySearch has nothing to do with them being there. The portrait can hold any type of image such as a photograph of the person, a headstone, a house, a flag or a kitten and there is no control over what goes there other than it has to be something that can be uploaded in the first place and the fact that any user can also remove a portrait. The use of anything other than a photograph is controversial.
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I am doing lineage research for an African-American woman. In Ancestry, I can search records by the category African-American. If you go to the Ancestry card catalog and search for African American collections, collections going back to the 1600s come up. If you go to the FamilySearch Catalog, quite a few collections come up as African-American related. I would suspect the same if I was looking for Asian, Spanish, Native American, etc collections to do lineage research.
The bottom line is that there is a need to do race and nationality centric research, and the statement that there is only a limited number of records is quite wrong. I highly recommend this suggestion be considered.
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