Preserving our local records

Sometimes when you hear that something has never been done, or cannot be done, it makes you even more determined to do it. That's what happened with a project that involved preserving the county records in Cooke County, Texas.

A woman named Darlene decided that she wanted to have records in her county courthouse digitized, indexed, and made available online to help people with their family history. She decided to get a team ready and just do it. 

The process

1. FamilySearch had been to the county 40 years earlier and had microfilmed many of the records. But there were many more to do. Darlene contacted FamilySearch to see if they would be willing to digitize the records.  

Normally the contact is made between FamilySearch and the record repository. We were told by FamilySearch that a project like this had never been done by citizens who were not associated with the repository or with FamilySearch, but they stated that they would send a camera if the county agreed.

2. Darlene started recruiting people at local genealogical societies, churches, and other groups to build a team.

3. Darlene chose a few people that included longtime county residents as well as experienced genealogists to meet with officials at the county courthouse to see if they would agree to have their records digitized and allow our team to do it.    

4. I contacted FamilySearch and asked for additional suggestions on what to present to the courthouse officials.

5. I went through the FamilySearch records to see what had already been microfilmed.

6. The team went to the courthouse and asked if they wanted their records preserved for free. There was some hesitation until they heard our plan, then the courthouse officials were enthusiastic.  The team toured the courthouse to see what records were available. Courthouse officials said we also needed to ask the County Commissioners for their approval.

7. The team went to the County Commissioners and received approval.

8. FamilySearch and the county agreed on what records FamilySearch would be allowed to digitize.

9.  A space was cleared in the county courthouse, and FamilySearch sent a camera.  I housed the camera operator (who was a lovely young woman) in my home for the months that it took to complete the project.

10. Darlene led the digitization project. She recruited her team to carefully prepare the documents for digitizing. The entire project took several months. We are very grateful to the many volunteers who helped preserve these records.

11. While the digitization was continuing Darlene and I contacted FamilySearch and said that we wanted to index the images. We mentioned the records we wanted to do, which included marriages, probates, and deeds. We were told that we may not be able to index some of the records. I assured FamilySearch that we had people who could complete the project and that I would lead the indexing effort.

12. FamilySearch agreed to all of the indexing requests, and I received a phone call today saying that some records were ready for indexing. I was asked when we wanted the records available.  I asked for an email about the records and said, "Please release them tomorrow."

The email arrived within minutes:

So tomorrow these records will be available for anyone in the world to index.  Please join us! What a great way to start the new year!

How to help

To participate in this or any other project at FamilySearch indexing, please go to http://www.familysearch.org/indexing/ and create an account if you don't already have one. Sign in, then click Web Indexing. 

In the "My Batches" section, click the Open Batch button next to Guided Tour--Introduction to Indexing.

When you are ready to index, click the blue Find Batches button:

You will see the following screen.

You can select one of the projects you see or you can specify a difficulty level, location, language, or time period. If you are new to indexing, you might want to start with a beginning difficulty level. The Cooke County, Texas, land and probate records will NOT be a beginning level project.

You don't have to be specific when searching by location.  Below we entered "texas" to find any projects relating to Texas. Until the Cooke County records are released tomorrow, there are currently no Texas projects.

You can index any project of your choice, and you don't have to be perfect. All indexing is reviewed before it is finalized, and nobody can tell who did the indexing. 

If you are good at reading handwriting, please help us with the Cooke County, Texas records.

There will be many more records to index in the near future, and we greatly appreciate the efforts of anyone who wants to help.

Make a difference

It doesn't matter if something has never been done before, and it doesn't matter if you are told that something cannot be done. Many volunteers in Cooke County, Texas, are pulling off a large project that illustrates that. 

We are starting a new year. Think about what you would like to see that will help you and future generations find their family history. 

If you would like to preserve your local records, listen to the interview with Steve Waters from FamilySearch at the website below. The interview starts at about the 10:45 minute position:

http://extremegenes.com/episode-185-familysearch-ready-to-digitize-your-local-records-utah-man-finds-family-history-gold-in-new-zealand-book-case/

Go for it! Together we can all leave a lasting legacy for future generations.

FamilySearch Worldwide Indexing Event 2017

FamilySearch.org has a free online family tree that anybody can use. All of us collectively are connecting our ancestors into one worldwide family tree. Of course, documentation is critical to show the evidence for our ancestral conclusions, and for documentary evidence FamilySearch excels.

FamilySearch has the world's largest collection of original records. It has been preserving records from around the world for more than 100 years and began microfilming in 1938. The microfilm collection includes more than 2.5 million rolls. In the past, researchers could order microfilms and microfiche and have them delivered to their local Family History Center or affiliate library. Books and other materials, however, could not be ordered. Therefore, as an avid family historian I used to take a semi-annual trip to the Family History Library to research all materials and extend my family tree.

It would be so much easier (and cheaper!) if all of these records were available online. In order to accomplish this and make the records freely available, FamilySearch began several years ago to digitize its collection. For example, many of the books are now viewable online. FamilySearch initially estimated that it would take more than a century to convert its microfilm collection to digital format. But due to technological advances, more than 1.5 million rolls of census, marriage, probate, and other records are already complete. Microfilms are now being scanned at a rate of approximately 1,000 per day, and the entire process will be finished by the end of 2020. Incredible! FamilySearch acquires all new records utilizing digital cameras.

Digital images are being indexed by volunteers from around the world. The indexed records are then made available to help all of us find our ancestors. You can become an indexer by going to FamilySearch Indexing. Indexing is web based; the indexer sees an image and indexes the information requested. The indexed images will be searchable online at FamilySearch.org at no charge.

In addition to the ongoing indexing, each year FamilySearch has a worldwide indexing event. In 2016, the three-day event far surpassed goals. In only three days, 116,475 volunteers throughout the world indexed 10,447,887 records.

FamilySearch is holding its annual event October 20-23, 2017. This year FamilySearch is particularly interested in indexing French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish records, although records in English and other languages will also be available. Here's what FamilySearch posted to its Worldwide Indexing Event 2017 Facebook page:
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Join volunteers from around the world on October 20–23 to help #familysearchindexing (wherever you are). You will have three days to index at least one batch in the language of your choice. If you are fluent in French, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish—our focus languages for 2017—please help index records in one of those languages. Special training will soon be available to help you prepare!

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This event is fun, and indexing is easy. You can choose from multiple projects in the language of your choice. Give it a try and help preserve the world's records.

Find out more and join the fun by clicking on this link: FamilySearch.org/indexingevent2017

Online Family Trees

When recording the lives of your ancestors, it is essential to have at least two online family trees.  I always knew it was a great idea for everyone else, but for many years I resisted doing this myself.  I had traveled to numerous courthouses, spent countless hours in libraries, etc., and I was not about to let anyone else steal MY research.  I also knew that there might be errors, and I didn't want anyone copying my errors from tree to tree.

Several years ago I decided to try posting a private tree to Ancestry.com containing just a small portion of my ancestry. It was so easy to search census and many other records, because Ancestry did it for me through their "shaky leaf" hint system.  The tree was easy to use, and I could access it from anywhere that I had an Internet connection. But then I decided to see what happened when I made my tree public. All I can say is WOW!  Yes, people copied my information from tree to tree, but they also found additional information that I copied.  Occasionally someone would catch an error.  When I corrected the error, I noticed that the other trees would, one-by-one, get changed to contain the new correction.  The best part came one day when a researcher had noticed a family Bible for sale on eBay.  She searched Ancestry.com public trees for the ancestor's name and found my tree.  She notified me that the Bible of one of my ancestors was for sale. I won the auction and am now the proud owner of a Bible published in the 1700s. I never again wanted any private trees.

If you are going to have any DNA testing (and I hope to encourage you to do so), online trees are essential. I find almost all of my DNA cousins through Ancestry.com, and my greatest discoveries have been made by comparing Ancestry public member trees. Almost everyone who is serious about their DNA research has a tree there.

There is no such thing as too many family trees. Post your ancestry on as many sites as you wish,but these two sites that are critical: Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. Here are why these two are important.

Ancestry.com is the best known website for family historians and genealogists.  Ancestry has a massive subscription base, and most subscribers have their own family trees there.  Once you start a family tree, you can search Ancestry's databases for records and attach the records to your ancestor's profile.  Ancestry even searches the most popular 20% of their databases and reports "hints" on your ancestor's profiles. Note that they do not search all of their databases, so you will want to do your own searching.  You can add photos, documents, and stories of your own to the tree.  And best of all, you can search other public member trees where you will find relatives who have these items about your ancestors.  I can't tell you how many great photos and other items I have received from distant cousins whom I never knew existed. All living people appear on Ancestry's trees as "Private", so their names and other information are not searchable.

FamilySearch.org is a well established website, but its newest tree system, FamilySearch Family Tree, has only been around for about a year.  Instead of each person having his own tree at FamilySearch, everyone works on a common family tree. That means that we are not duplicating efforts. When you find a 1850 census record and attach it to the correct family, it never has to be found again.  Everyone will see the new record on the tree. The same applies when someone adds a photo or story to an ancestor's profile.  If someone adds a photo of one of your ancestors, you will not have to find it.  It will appear in your tree.

Please note that you cannot search for, or find, any living person at FamilySearch Family Tree.  Even if you give me your full name, date of birth, and ID number in the system, I still can't find you.  Even my own children can't find me on FamilySearch, so I can still tell them I'm 29 years old! All deceased people should appear in the tree only once, but because living people are not searchable, they may be entered into the tree multiple times. Each person adds all living family members to their portion of the tree so that they can view them. Once you've added your living family (who are visible only to you), you can search for the deceased family members and connect them to your tree.  FamilySearch's collection of digitized and indexed records is available directly from FamilySearch Family Tree, so you can connect them to your ancestor's profile.  In addition, you can add your own photos, documents, and stories.

If you do not have a family tree at one or both of these sites, I cannot encourage you strongly enough to do so.  Each system have different records and different technology.  You will leave a lasting family legacy by using both systems. You can create a tree for free at Ancestry.com, but searching their records requires a subscription.  Everything at FamilySearch is free, just create an account and get started.