October Pumpkins
Catch The Vision
November is our Stake Indexing Challenge month to accompany our Stake Temple Month. We have been asked to index 225,000 names during the month of November. That means each Ward or Branch would need to indexing/arbitrating 25,000 names. It can be done and we hope that you are beginning to hear talk about the challenge in your Ward during the month of October.
September Indexing Statistics
September total = 74,780
Ward indexed & Arbitrated names
Clinton 25
Edmond 1st 9033
Edmond 2nd 6507
Okc 5th 7873
Okc 1st 3322
Okc 3rd 16138
Quail Creek 19621
Village 673
Woodward 11972
Youth Okc 1st 18
Youth Okc 5th 10
Youth Quail Creek 60
Total YTD Stake (indexed & Arbitrated)
948,830
Arbitrators
September 19th - 26th was the week set aside for arbitrators to try to index 4 million records from the WWI Draft Card project. We almost made it by arbitrating 2 Million names that week. There are still 1.5 Million names to go in that project so we are encouraged to continue working on that project as much as we can. Thank you for taking the time to work on those records as some of the location names in Austria-Hungary were very difficult to figure out. My suggestion is to try a different state if you find it too difficult.
I will be attending an Indexing Open House for Stake Indexing Directors in Salt Lake City on Friday, October 5th. It will be exciting to hear what the director of Family Search has to say and to learn new things, which I will gladly share with all of you.
Autumn trees
Tips for searching the Census Records
If you find yourself having problems finding your ancestors in the census records here are a few tips that I found on the Ancestry.com blog page: Ancestry.com is available in the Family History Center for your use, free of charge.
- Browse the actual images. You may find relatives living with older neighbors who had the same last name. Scan forward and backward a few pages after you find the persons name to look for others in the family.
- If searching in ancestry.com, try selecting the " Show advanced" tab on the search form. Then enter just the first name, leave the surname blank, an include a birth year marking the latter as "exact". You might include a place name.
- Try entering just the surname, with a place name.
- Try using a wildcard; ie an *, (asterisk) to replace one or more letters in a surname. Indexers sometimes have a hard time reading that old hand writing and could have interpreted a "T" as a "L" or and "R" for a "N". This could make your "Carter" family name to be spelled Cralen !
- There are two basic approaches to searching the census:
- One is to start out entering only a few data items in the search fields. Like, only a surname and a place name. (What some like to call fishing in the larger pond, because you get a huge amount of results.) Then add more search items as you narrow down the field.
- Second approach is to put in as many search items as you know and get fewer results. Then go back and remove some of the more specific search items to open up more results.
Family Search Tree
Family tree will soon be replacing new.familysearch.org as the way for members to submit names for temple ordinances. It is important to learn how to use this new feature. The benefits include, but not limited to:
- The ability to add, edit , and delete relationships.
- The ability to discuss and show sources for family tree information. (I consider this the most important addition)
- A tool for receiving notifications on people added and new sources.
- A tool to know when someone makes a change to your data.
- Tools to qualify and submit names for temple work
Need help learning how to use this new feature? Contact your Ward Family History Consultants and visit the Family History Center with it's expanded new hours.
You can also try out the new system at Family Tree Training Site on www.familysearch.org
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