As I have trained folks to index, the constant feedback I get is:"The handwriting is hard to read, h
One option would be to sort through and return batches until you find one that is typewritten or really easy to read. Any thoughts?
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@AlexRoberts AlexRoberts Particularly with youth and newer members of the Church (or those just starting out with family history research), that's a legitimate concern. And your option is a valid one. People need to get familiar with something first (in this case indexing), before they can start absorbing some of the finer details or more challenging aspects.
At the same time, for at least some older youth as well as adults, it could be a time to teach. I fear that general society is moving toward a sense of "I want it now, I want it easy, and I want it brief." The combination of relational databases and the internet has made it exceptionally easy to find almost anything we want these days. And yes, eventually artificial intelligence (AI) will be able to read even very old, very archaic writing styles. But someone, at some point, had to have decided they were going to become conversant if not expert in something that few people knew, and they passed that knowledge on to the rest of us to make it easier.
There are numerous articles and videos on how to read old script. Thank goodness for those people that first learned how to read it (or still knew how) and "translated" it all for the rest of us. Until AI takes over the world (shudder!! 😉 ), I'm personally thankful for the many people here and elsewhere that have created videos on various subjects so the rest of us could learn what they know. And for some of the more advanced youth and reasonably mature adults, perhaps it's an opportunity to motivate them to become "expert" in something that others don't know much about, and become that valued teacher for others. We can't individually know everything about everything, but each can become fairly competent in a few things and help others that aren't competent in those areas. Plus, self-sufficiency is a value that seems to be becoming less important to many - too many want things to be given to or done for them.
Also, I'd suggest not being too quick with someone that expresses those "too hard" sentiments, to just reinforce the idea of finding the easiest typewritten, best focused, least grainy records possible. That same philosophy parallels the trend by some to find the easiest-to-find names (Ordinances Ready) and not spending more time to learn how to find those more elusive ancestors that are eagerly awaiting our freeing actions on their behalf. Help people learn how to learn for themselves with a video, how-to article, or your own knowledge on a subject if you've got it.
-- Chris
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As the person over indexing in the Stake, as I've been asked to speak over it in the past two years-I've actually addressed this issue. What I have suggested, especially for the sake of the younger people is to ask we older adults and grand parents who know cursive writing to write out the alphabet in cursive writing for them. It makes it a whole lot easier than to constantly go back and forth constantly trying to check the box that is up there with each letter. I suggested it for both capital and lower case letters. I have had numerous families thank me for this and their families have taken it up for home evenings and for Sunday afternoon activities. Of course, this was before the Covid-19 outbreak. I noticed more and more of the easier English batches were being checked out and that was a plus.
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Youth know how to google. Simply tell them to google "cursive" and go to the images in the search results. They can use those charts to help them decipher letters. Then, for an advanced lesson, have them look up "Palmer Method" in Wikipedia and view the chart there. This will help them learn some of the older forms of cursive letters that they are likely to encounter in older documents. Encourage them! Tell them it will be hard at first but not every thing that is worthwhile is easy.
It is vital that we help train up a new generation of genealogists. Indexing will help them develop the skills needed to read old records, which will be the foundation of their future research efforts. As with Joseph Smith in translating the Book of Mormon, he used the Urim and Thummim extensively as he started, and the work was laborious, but towards the end he could read the Reformed Egyptian without help.
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I think these replies are really great! I have been stake indexing director for several years. When teaching others to index, especially a large group, I like to have some batches that are very easy--typewritten is great--just to get them started. When I work one on one I like to show them the icons/tools that help with all sorts of things including handwriting.
The thing that I have found with handwriting is that the more I Index, the better I get. Using the Reference Images/Split Screen can be very helpful when the same person wrote many records in a project.
I love it when indexers call me while they are indexing and ask for help with issues. It is often that there are too many Entry forms for an image. Sometimes they call and want help deciphering handwriting and it's so fun to work together trying to figure out just what the letters are. Once we figure out the handwriting style, indexing becomes easier.
Next time I have the chance to teach a group, I will incorporate some of the thoughts in above comments to encourage indexers to know it's hard but they are learning something new and valuable to help them serve others.
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I have indexed many times and yes the handwriting is very hard to read, just do the best you can and if you can't read it put a ?? so that you looks at it after you finish will be able to read the handwriting. There is someone out there that can read it. Don't give up.
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I agree. It's getting harder to find "easy" indexing -- it seems like all of the easier ones are already done. Keep working at it; you'll get better as you practice.
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Thanks to you all for very helpful answers, and for taking time to write them. Bless you.
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Please do not put ?? this creates an ID and duplicates that have to be merged or deleted when you are attaching/sources. A better choice would be Ctl-B for blank or Ctl-U for unreadable.
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Not sure if you can get it but do a search for "New Zealand Electoral Rolls, 1865-1967", Easiest Batches on line currently, we need all the help we can get.
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