I love Family History. Family History can seem like a daunting, complicated task for many. If that has been your experience thus far, let me introduce you to the most simple way to participate in Family History: Indexing.
What is Indexing?
Indexing is a simple process where you type what you see on scanned documents. Those documents are then more easily searchable to help connect you to your deceased ancestors.
Worldwide Indexing Event
Every year, FamilySearch.org hosts a the Worldwide Indexing Event. I love to participate in this event and feel like I am part of something bigger than diaper changes and laundry. There are often goals to see how many indexers will participate, how many new indexers will register, and how many records will be indexed during this 72 hour period.
Check out the FamilySearch Indexing Facebook page to register today! Or go to the FamilySearch Indexing website.
Web Indexing Features
The event this year is October 20-22. The program is new and improved. Some of the features that I love:
- It is all online. Web indexing is what they are calling it now.
- There is a fabulous guided tour to help familiarize you with the indexing process.
- Easily set goals for the month, quarter, or year to keep you indexing.
- You can search for and create groups to set and keep track of goals as a team.
- Set preferences for difficulty and language of documents to index.
I had my 9 year old go through the guided tour and she was in love. She kept saying “this is better than a video game!” She indexed records of people coming from Scotland to New York. It was fun to hear her think aloud and speculate as to why people were leaving their homes to come to America and what they must have thought of all that paperwork.
My favorite part about indexing these documents is that each one gives a glimpse into the life of a real person who really existed. People that I never knew have a paper trail that I can follow to learn more about them. Census records tell me their occupation, Death Records tell me how they died, etc. These are real people who have a story to tell and to help someone discover a part of that story is priceless.
Go register today! It’s super fun! I absolutely love it, and you will too!
