Indexing

When a day of work is done, all I want to do is nothing. Nothing whatsoever. Eric usually wants me to do something that isn't nothing.

Lately I've taken to focusing my efforts on nothing toward FamilySearch Indexing which is actually not nothing at all. It's really a great program. Basically it's an extraction program. You download a batch, extract the information that the program tells you to extract, and then send it back to FamilySearch. Eventually FamilySearch wants to have the entirety of the LDS Family History Library completely indexed. That's quite a lofty goal, and I'm keen to help.

So far I've index 2,153 names. Usually I index census pages, which almost always have 50 names per sheet. I've also indexed Revolutionary War Pension files as well as Land Bounty Warrants. All of these are really important records for anybody doing genealogy on their American ancestors. But don't fear, FamilySearch isn't just focusing on American records. Poles are indexing Polish records; Russians are indexing Russian records; Mexicans are indexing Mexican records, and so on.

My goal is to have indexed 10,000 names by the end of the year. And also to get some of you to start indexing! In just 15 minutes a day, you can accomplish quite a lot. I usually can finish one census page in 15 minutes, but I'm pretty fast. I think the average is about 25-30 minutes per census page. Lots of people are indexing. You should help out. You'll never know when you'll need an indexed census.