While you are reviewing, you may frequently see a field marked <Unreadable> by a volunteer indexer.
Examples
- The name or word may have been written over, making the word underneath unreadable.
- The document itself may have some damage making certain parts of it unreadable.
- The characters on aged typewritten documents may have expanded and run together, causing words to be entirely illegible.
If the field entry has any legible characters, the text should not be marked as being unreadable.
Steps
- Do your best to identify as many characters as possible by looking for a similar characters in familiar words.
- Use a wildcard in place of the illegible characters.
- Type a ? (question mark) in place of one illegible character.
- Type an * (asterisk) in place of two or more sequential illegible characters.
Note: Wildcards allow for possible variations to appear in the searches. For this reason, it is often more helpful to use wildcards to replace illegible characters than it is to try and guess at them. This way, researchers who recognize the correct spelling may able to step in later.
Thank you for your efforts in helping to ensure the accuracy of our records.
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