Written by Devin Ashby
Drumroll please! April marked the completion of two indexing projects that have been around since the early days of the program. The FamilySearch indexing website launched back in November of 2005, and projects appeared on the site one year later in 2006. We are very excited to announce the following.
The Ohio Tax indexing project, in partnership with the Ohio Genealogical Society (OGS), has been available for indexing since 2006. A video highlighting this partnership is now available on the FamilySearch YouTube channel. There have been over 8,800 unique volunteers who have indexed and arbitrated over 1 million records. Missy Derrenberger, a member of OGS, has been with the indexing project from the start. When asked about indexing, she said, “At 68, I no longer have children at home, and not a lot of patience with what is on TV today. Most of my indexing is done in the evening, anywhere between 7 and midnight.” She concludes, “I am such a huge fan of the FamilySearch website. I cannot believe how much information I have found. Giving back makes me feel like I am accomplishing something.”
The Mexico 1930 Census started in September of 2007 and boasts over 40,500 unique users with a whopping 15.3 million records. Twenty-eight states will have images published and available in the near future. This particular project was the first Spanish project offered in FSI! The following experience from the Distrito Federal in Mexico in June 2009 illustrates the importance of indexing. Due to computer problems, an indexing activity for a youth group was canceled. One young woman didn’t hear about the cancellation and said with a surprised look on her face, “We’re not going to index today?” She was informed of the computer problems and then she said, “Let me index even if it’s just one name; it is important to me, and I feel I should do it even if you just let me write a single name.”
These two completions join the Australia-Victoria Probate Records project, another million-plus record project launched in 2006, which was finished earlier this year. A loyal workforce of just over 1,000 individuals finished this large project, and the index is now available at the Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) website.
A big thank you to all who have worked so hard on these projects! Records will now be available to the entire world because volunteers took the time to index. Way to go!
To access records from these projects, go to www.familysearch.org.
