Alternative Family History Projects: Indexing

Probably the most well-known alternative family history project among Church members is indexing. Most members have heard of indexing and many have participated in it. 

What Is Indexing?

For anyone unfamiliar or unsure, indexing is a way to digitize documents. Specifically, you type up the contents of historical documents so as to make those contents searchable.

A variety of documents have been or could be indexed; some of the most common document types include census records, marriage certificates, and voter records.

Traditionally, these documents were maintained in hardcopy and later on microfilm or microfiche. While microfilm/microfiche allowed the documents to preserved in a more space-efficient manner, be distributed far wider than the original hardcopies, and even potentially be uploaded online, there was still a critical shortcoming: the information was still generally inaccessible. Finding information would require a person searching through literally thousands or millions of documents based on whatever scanty clues they had about their relatives in hopes of discovering an official record with information about their family members. Think about the hours, weeks, or even years it might take to find the information you were looking for. 

By digitizing the contents of the records, people doing family history or other research can use computers to search across millions for various information in seconds.

How Much Indexing Has Been Done So Far?

The Church actually started  indexing in 1921, though at that time it was all done manually on physical index cards. The Church's mass online indexing efforts began in 2006, which means it has been going on for 15 years. The campaign has been very successful and Church-sponsored efforts have resulted in more than a billion records being indexed.

How Do I Get Started?

You can help out via FamilySearch.org. There is actually a whole section of FamilySearch dedicated to indexing: https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/. To get started:

• First, you select "Web Indexing" or "Find a Project".
• Next, you'll actually pick an indexing project to help on.
• Then, you'll be asked to log in to FamilySearch. (Setting up a FamilySearch account is fast and easy. For those who already have Church accounts for churchofjesuschrist.org, it is even faster: you'll be using the same login information.)
• Once you are logged in, the real fun begins. You'll be directed to download a "batch." A batch is just a portion of a project.

Each project has instructions and there are also general guidelines for indexing. But the process is fairly intuitive and won't take long to get the hang of it. Basically you'll be asked to look at scanned copies of historical documents and type specific information into designated fields/boxes.

Depending on the project, batches can be larger or smaller. If you end up with a larger batch, don't panic. You don't have to finish it all in one sitting. You can start and stop as much as you like. FamilySearch will save your progress each time. But be aware that batches have "due dates." Normally the due date is eight days after you accept a batch. Once the due date is reached, the batch will be withdrawn from your queue.

For first-time indexers, you might want to check out "Guided Tour—Introduction to Indexing": this batch is available to all FamilySearch users and is just a practice project with extra explanations and tutorials. It's a good way to get family with the indexing process.

Fun for Language Geeks

Just like the other alternative family history projects I've introduced, indexing can be done with materials in languages other than English. There are plenty of projects from all other the world and in a variety of languages (Spanish, Italian, French, German, Portuguese, etc.). So for those who enjoying using foreign languages, this is another neat little opportunity.