Eat Your Heart Out, Shakespeare
11 hours ago
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
New Fun
The combined RS/YW/Priesthood lesson on Sunday was to learn how, then do, some name indexing for Family Search. It was fun, people calling out "it's Lewis, not Harris" (and if you've seen the handwriting, you know what I'm talking about) and things like that. So I decided to start, too. It's an easy way to start or wind down the day, and the detective work involved is just challenging enough to make it interesting without making it too difficult. There's censuses in both English (US or Canada) and Spanish (Mexico), plus Revolutionary War records, in the general list, and you can sign up for special projects, too. The church just started on a German census and I know at least three of you have enough fluency to help. I'm thinking about doing it, myself, and I don't have nearly as much experience with German given names or handwriting. Anyway, it's fun, it's easy, and it's a great way to help others with their temple work.
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4 comments:
Before you start indexing in German, study some German documents. You should be able to find some online, or I can let you look at some parish records. It takes a while to get an eye for the handwriting. It is very different from English, even English in the same time period. With practice you can get very good at it and that will up the challenge level a bit. I have done a couple of Wisconsin census records. The handwriting is in English, of course, but most of the surnames are German and the enumerator did not have a clue how to spell them. Apparently he did not ask or the people did not know either. There are some pretty strange looking names. It's a lot of fun though. Go get um!
Its sounds like fun! So I signed up, although I didn't have time today to do much more than that. Lemme at those Germans!
I've thought about getting involved in this, but I'm focusing my computer time on finishing Independent Study classes first, and I've got plenty of those to do! That's great that you're working on it. Hopefully one day I'll be able to help.
I have been having fun doing this. The batches for the U.S. census records are only a single page- which is at the most 50 names. If I have an easy to read page I can get it done in just about 30 minutes.
I have only given myself the goal of doing one batch a week so that it doesn't consume all of my free time. Warning: It is hard to stop at that - especially when you first start. I am behaving myself now though.
The best part is that I feel like I am doing my part to give a little back to the internet research resources that have at times been really valuable to me.
I am too chicken to do the German census. Knowledge of the language is not enough- Nate knows the language but I have to pull out my German handwriting helps to figure out what the letters are because often he isn't familiar with them. But if you can pick up the letters then good luck.
That German census is on Ancestry right now and it has been a valuable one for me so if it is offered for free by the church it will be valuable for a lot of other people.
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