What do you do when you have questions? (How to find the FAQ now)
Did you know you could click on the blue (?) at the top of the screen and find articles to help you know what to do in certain situations? Scroll down to learn more - the "Help with reviewing families" article includes links to quite a few additional articles to share what we've seen in a number of situations and how to handle them.
And be sure to keep reporting problems you see where the records could end up being joined in error or if you see missing (or extra) information or other data corruption issues. We're watching all the problem reports closely. Thanks for your patience and working through this new experience with us!
Comments
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In past projects, one was offered basic guidance before being given live batches to process.
Seems this year the idea is to leave it to the indexers to seek training when they feel it is needed.
That decision has created confusion and much rework. I keep getting rework pages in my batches because people were not instructed how to mark "vacant" and "no one home" properly at the outset.
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I just figured out the simple solution. Oh well! I just added the person by clicking the circle by her name!
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@Tom Gibson_1 , Here are some guidance articles for you to review if you haven't already found them. They are found in the Help Center. We appreciate your willingness. Thank you so much!
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How do you add a name suffix if it was missed?
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What do you do if all the information about a person is there, but the line has been crossed through?
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@Sherry Winter If you are working in Name Review and a suffix was missed, you ignore it. It will be picked up in Family Review where there is a space where it can be added. Here is a link to an article that explains what to do with information that has been crossed out. https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-index-crossed-out-corrected-canceled-or-void-information
Thank you for your careful attention to these details.
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What are you supposed to do if it says “vacant” or “no one at home”?
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How do I 'back up' to edit a previous family on the same page I am working on?
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@Wendy Brown1, I see that you are wanting to know how to back up to a previous family on the same page. You cannot use the back feature do that. It will only let you back up while working with your particular household.
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@moboco In doing Review Families when you come to a line that says "vacant" or "no one at home", click "Skip Household" (written in blue) in the bottom right of the review screen. In the popup that results, select the first choice which says "The entire household is "Vacant", "No one home", or something similar". Then select the "Next Household" button in blue.
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I have a family listed on the form and the only one that was typed in was the head, skipping the whole family. Is there a way to add them?
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@AnnaRuth1, are you saying that you don't have the option to click the box beside the family members to add them? Do they already have a green beside them? If they have a green circle next to them, they may have already been reviewed and the father was skipped somehow. If the father has the red circle and you can't check the family members to add them, please report by clicking on "Skip Family" and describe what you are saying. It is hard to totally understand what you are saying without a screenshot. Thank you for letting us know.
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I'm finding no FAQ or other guidance that says what to do with the dash that's generally placed in place of the head of household's surname, when the other family members' surnames are the same. We've just been correcting the "--" with the surname of the head of household if it's clearly a spouse or child and should be expected to have the same surname. Is that considered the correct answer - to change the dash to the head of household surname?
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How do I review hyphens, dashes, and empty spaces in the Surname field?
Article Id: 17483 April 05, 2022
A hyphen, dash, or empty space in the Surname field signifies that the person's last name is the same as the person from the line above.
The correct review action depends on whether you are reviewing names or reviewing families.
Name Review
Leave the name as is and mark as a Match.
Family Review for the 1950 US Census
Replace the dash with the appropriate surname.
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on the Header reviews - what is correct way to list person???? is it last name first then comma then first name or first middle then last name??? Doe, John Q or John Q Doe ????
What to do in NAMES - when they leave out a member?? I find no way to add said person!!!
Thanks
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@Cassady, Holleen Hope The indexed names in the header unfortunately usually listed first name, then a comma, then the last name. You can just remove the comma. The overriding decision going forward is that Header Reviews are going to be performed in a different manner and you will not be asked to do them.
As for names left out in Names Review, we will just have to trust the computer to get things sorted out during Family Review. Because the system has allowed a fairly free-form name review, names that seem left out may have been reviewed already by another person.
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Will they be moving our names totaled to our indexing total for a total count of names extacted
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@stevearnold1, “Review and improve” is a different activity and will be tracked differently. You will be able to see how much you do, specific to this activity. All of your volunteer statistics will soon be brought together in one place.
I'm not sure if this specifically answers your question, but this is what we have this far. Thank you for your question.
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While reviewing families, I’ve had a couple of cases where the surname is missing for a child. When you get to where you can correct the spelling it just says “Missing field” and you can’t enter the surname. It would be nice if an empty surname box was provided to enter the name. See screenshots for example.
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This is so frustrating. It happens many times per day, I report them all in Feedback and I HOPE that someone fixes them, but feedback seems a one way street. In reviewing most fields you can change (hopefully correctly), WHY not these. Just give me the same entry box showing data is missing and let me change if appropriate.
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@RobertSteiner4, you have done the correct thing in reporting this issue. The engineers are looking at the Feedback and working on the program. I know it is frustrating, and you are not alone, but I have confidence and know that engineers are seeing the issues and that it isn't a one way street. We will hope for corrections soon in the system.
We appreciate all that you are doing to help the program to be successful. Thank you so much!
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They have been working on this issue and it's a frustrating one. Unfortunately they are not going to be able to fix it, so you will continue to see these. There will soon be a new option in the "Feedback/Report a Problem" window to report these, and we can fix them later.
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I saw that there is supposed to be a new option to report this missing field but I can't find it. Here is what is in the instructions.
- The "Missing Fields" you would see sometimes in the surname changed to "Field Unavailable," and there's an option to select that in Report Feedback. We tried to fix these but there are a lot that we haven't been able to fix, so we'd like these reported so we can fix them later. No need to type anything in Other, just check the new option and finish the review.
What does the new option say? It's not in the skip family or in the report a problem options. Please help. I have a whole page where most of the fields are missing. I'm working in Laramie, Albany, Wyoming.
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Hello Vickil
Please report your findings in the Report Feedback-Other and in the box describe the problem. Mention the line or row number, and the problem:
Missing surnames, highlight problems, person belong to previous image etc.
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So far I'm finding Wyoming woefully lacking in surnames. Several pages of this. On one page, only two households (a total of 5 lines) had a surname. The rest were "Missing Field." No overlapped highlight lines or Vacant lines either.
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@MinnWisRoots, I ran into that also. I hope that you were able to report the issue on those pages. They will be taken care of, as you most likely know. Thank you for all that you do in helping everyone!!!
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When working in families instead of a house number it gives a direction. ie, 2nd house on lift. Use that or just leave it blank. George
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When I was doing names, I would do a whole page but at times a surname was skipped. I made a report that the surname had been skipped. Was I right in doing that or should I have just done the names listed and not reported the surname as missing?
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@George Ezell Legg(e), you were fine in reporting it. Oftentimes it is skipped because it has already been done by another reviewer.
When there is just a direction, we have been instructed not to give descriptions. So you can leave that one blank. All is well and we thank you so much for your hard work!
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When reviewing families, I have come across several pages that are filled with names, but no other information. How do I review those?
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