Indexing! What is It? And Why Do We Need It?

Computers can't "read" these.  But YOU can.

You know all those billions of documents from a long time ago that we now have pictures of and have been scanned into microfiche and film?

No?

Okay, well you know there's tons of paperwork from a long time ago that records city populations etc.  But anyways, those documents get scanned to and get copied to digital copies because we can't pass around the originals so everyone can look at them.

INDEXING is where we transcribe the images into a database so computers can search the databases corresponding to the images because computers can't read old-timey handwriting or decipher it.

So lets say you're looking for Joseph Lark born in 1820 in Kentucky to William and Emma Lark both from England.   A computer isn't going to be able to search the images of those documents and find that information.  But if we have individuals like YOU who can read them and enter what's on them into a database, then we can use computers to search the contents of the images/documents so we can find what we are looking for and find the right image.  THEN people doing genealogy can find those documents, use the spirit to find out who's-who and submit the names to the temple for their ordinances to be completed so they may have an election to the celestial kingdom.

In other words, indexing is critical to genealogy.  Indexing is critical to temple work.  There is much work that can't be done yet because the documents haven't been indexed yet for people to be able to find.

 While we could pay people to do it, the cost would be enormous and quite slow for the amount of work required.  So instead, the church asks for volunteers to look at scans of old-timey documents such as censuses, immigration lists, draft cards, etc., and transcribe their contents into a database so that people can find what they are looking for in genealogy. In fact, the LDS church was instrumental in indexing the 1940 census that was released in early 2012 and the work of indexing 132 million records was completed in record time by indexing volunteers.

Each document is indexed twice by two separate volunteers and then if there's a discrepancy between their interpretation of the documents, an expert arbitrator reviews the discrepancies and determines the final outcome. 

Indexing is an excellent way to become familiar with the different types of documents as well as is some excellent practice on reading / deciphering old handwriting which you'll need to do this work.  There are a number of tools there that will teach you and give you clues on how to read and decipher the handwriting.

Old name abbreviations n' handwriting example from Rootsweb - you'll learn these!

You can index an entire census a bit at a time each day and they generally take me about twenty minutes apiece.  You don't have to finish it all at once, but you can work on a document five minutes here and there until you complete it.

One of the things I got to become proud of or watch for is my "accuracy" which the indexing program keeps track of which  can help you know whether you're beginning to understand what you're doing.  If you ever need something to do to feel productive online and you got tired of Facebook or don't do Facebook but want to do something different?  Try indexing!

To learn more about indexing or even get started on it - click HERE.