Do I understand that when it doesn't say Female or Male, you can't put sex when the names are clear?
I can understand not putting sex for names like Michele - Italian for Michael - Male and also used by many for the English spelling for the Female name which is most often spelled Michelle - or even names like Leslie, Morgan, and the many gender-neutral names but when the name is completely clear and obvious - like Ann, Mary, Lily, Laura, Joan, Sally etc or Peter, John, Henry, Robert - not indicating sex just seems silly. Can you not indicate sex unless the record says Female or Male. I've been indexing voters roll for New Zealand and have done about 180 entries wrong if that is the case. The job and the indicator - married, verified sex in most of them anyway. I am confused. I know I've been away from indexing for a while but this seems silly.
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Hi Michele,
I agree that, yes, it does seem silly, but we are usually told to only index what is on the page and allow the searcher to add the gender of the person to their own tree as they might have more information.
Click on the field for sex/gender and a purple circle with a question mark in it will appear to the right. Click on it and a box will pop up giving you the correct information as to how to correctly fill in that field.
Also I have known some girls who have been called by what appears to be male names but turn out to be a shortened version of their female version, George instead of Georgina for instance. It is the same as abbreviated names, we can only type in the abbreviation not a full name.
I have found that this video is useful and can help with some issues.
Indexing Discussion (Jason Pierson Live) - YouTube
Best regards
Cedar
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The general rule in indexing is to type what you see and infer nothing. It is the job of individual genealogists to evaluate the evidence and make conclusions and inferences.
This issue has been discussed recently on the forum, but now I can't find it. I'm pretty sure a FS staff member said that gender must not be indexed unless that fact is explicitly stated. The only exception would be if the Project Instructions explicitly said otherwise.
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Hi @micheleburstein! The New Zealand project, which is restricted to indexing by New Zealanders, always had a unique project instruction or a field help that says you can use the occupation to determine the gender. Additionally, we can use relationship terms "or other evidence in the language" to determine gender in most projects. So, words like butler, maid, fireman, seamstress, etc., can be used to determine gender in this project. In most projects words like wife, husband, son, daughter, etc. could be used to determine gender. For instance, in a situation where "Glenda, the wife of John, was buried", based on the timing of the records, we can enter female for Glenda's gender, and John would be a male. Of course, the ability to use relationship terms to determine gender will change over time as records becomes more recent. In the case of Glenda, the mother of John, Sam, Susan, and Mary, only Glenda's gender can be determined from those words. Given names still can not be used to determine gender.
There was a discussion about this project and whether or not tailor could be used to determine gender. I think it is a gender neutral term, but, others who actually work on the project felt it was a male term.
Most projects have a gender field, just like they have many other columns that will usually be blank. But, it is very easy to globally render the fields blank using the "copy forward to all matching fields" toll which takes about two seconds. (6th icon from the right).
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Barbara,
Your point is very valid, also Marion (think John Wayne) was a boy's name. I did come across something interesting in a historical book, the name Hyacinthe used to be a boy's name. Funny how things change.
Best regards
Cedar
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Then why on earth put in the gender entry necessitating a blank entry one hundred times per page - that is ridiculous, particularly as the job and marital status verified all but about ten of the two hundred names I entered. Won’t do any of that project again! Sheesh!
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I've seen men named Shirley, Pearl, etc. To go by what looks like a masculine or feminine given name would be an assumption unless, as has been said, there's a gender qualifier.
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Please share the batch number or ID from the project you are indexing with your question to accurately give you an answer.
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Unless we have the shared batch code we can only guess at an answer. It is easy to misinterpret what a person is asking even when it seems perfectly clear. That is why we ask for the Shared batch code. We want to give you the best answer possible.
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Melissa Himes, Pointing out that the NZ project is restricted to New Zealanders upset me. I was born in Zambia but emigrated to New Zealand when I was 12. I became a New Zeraland Citizen three years later. In total I have lived in New Zealand for a total of 45 years (12 years and then 13 years in two later periods living in Zambia and South Africa) and am a New Zealand citizen - technically I suppose I'm therefore, not a New Zealander. I stand correct and will not presume to do records I'm not entitled to do. May I ask how I'm to know if I'm allowed to index a project or not? I had no idea, after doing 20,000 entries 10 years ago, that certain projects were restricted to people born in particular countries. Things certainly have changed over the 10 years I've been away from indexing.
To the others who responded, I am very well aware that many names are used for males such as Marion, Shirley etc and that there are females who have male sounding names like Michael and George . I also read the instructions for the project and gathered that if the occupation and other information agreed that you could enter the gender. I was clearly wrong. I feel now i'm 10 years older I'm probably reading instructions incorrectly and should probably retire myself and leave indexing to the younger folk.
I apologise for being an old nuisance. I really only wanted to help facilitate the Gathering for those on the other side of the veil. My mother has done 60 years work on my family genealogy and there isn't a family name available that hasn't been done, leaving nothing for me to do there. This has all saddened me making me feel old and foolish. Again, my apologies.
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Hello @micheleburstein! There is a very serious misunderstanding here. I did not say that you had to be a native New Zealander to index these records. My understanding is this project is restricted to people residing in New Zealand. This was done during the days of Covid 19 shutdowns so that these beautiful records could be indexed by people in New Zealand who were in lockdown, just as we were in the US. I only responded because I had the chance to see the records a few times and read the project instructions before they were restricted. The previous posters were obviously not aware that in this project the very SPECIAL instruction that occupation could be used to determine gender existed. YOU WERE NOT WRONG.
As far as wondering how one knows when a project is restricted, it won't show up on your Find Batches list if you are not supposed to work on it. You cannot select the project, you also cannot view the shared batches. For instance, I am not a member of the Church and am restricted from working on the Wisconsin projects. On the other hand, last year I was able to work on a project that was restricted to people in the state of Virginia. They needed extra help and put out an invitation to join their indexing group. I joined and then was able to index those records.
I hope that you will continue to index these records and enjoy indexing again.
Best Regards,
Melissa
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As far as I'm aware, the restrictions relate to your current location, not your citizenship or place of birth.
So if a project is restricted to New Zealand or New Zealanders, it means that those in New Zealand are the only ones allowed to do it. This is most likely due to contracts between FS and the record owner(s). In this case, I don't exactly know who the record owner is. Ancestry and FindMyPast have these records on their websites, and both have a partnership with FS. Restricting indexing to those in New Zealand may be a way to slow the indexing down so that FS doesn't compete with those companies (No one would subscribe to Ancestry or FMP for the NZ Electoral Rolls if they knew they could get them for free at FS).
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Michele,
I read you post and I can assure you that you are far from being an old nuisance, and you have nothing to apologise for, if that was the case I would probably be in that club with you. Anyone who has indexed as many entries as you have has done a brilliant job. If you are twiddling your fingers and looking for some indexing have a look at the Irish indexing of church records. We are trying to get as many done as we can, and I can assure you that any volunteers are most welcome. At the moment we are indexing records from Counties Antrim, Armagh, Clare, and Cork, with others due to be added. If I remember correctly we will eventually be indexing records from most of the other counties as well. There are even tutorials if you want one. Please don't worry as with all the work you have done you have helped so many people access records and find ancestors who never could have been able to if you had not done the work. You are your ancestors hands and they will be proud of your work.
God bless
Cedar
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