September Indexing Cumulative for 2013

 

Top 5 Youth Indexers in 2012
On Display in Stake Center, Edmond and Surrey Hills Bldgs. 
Posters made by Toni Stowell - Village Ward

Hopefully you have seen this poster in one of our Stake Buildings that honors the 5 Top Youth Indexers. If you haven't please look for them in the foyer and take a minute or two to read the youth's bio's. They are a wonderful group of youth who worked very hard to earn that distinction last year. We are proud of all of the Stake Youth Indexers and may they all realize the tremendous work that they  are doing when they index each name. Thank you Toni for taking the time and your talents to make these beautiful posters.

New Family Search animated Video about indexing

Click on the link below to view the latest video created by FamilySearch as found on Legacy Family Tree Site. It is cute and explains why we index. A good film for youth to watch too.

http://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/familysearch-indexing/

BLOSSOMING AT THE TEMPLE

Photo taken by Linda Hardy

Stake Indexing Cum for 2013

426,542

Indexing  & Arbitrating Cums to 2 Sep 2013 by Wards

Ward                   Total         

• Clinton                                  13984   
• Edmond 1st                           40875      
• Edmond 2nd                          23951
• Okc 5th                               27547
• Okc 1st                                 53032
• Okc 4th Branch                             5
• Okc 3rd                                 39582
• University                                   184
• Quail Creek                           73,323
• Village                                    53706
• Woodward                             70348

Primary Age

Primary Okc 1st                                    164

Primary Quail Creek                              223

Youth 

Edmond 1st                                         2988

Edmond 2nd                                          464

Okc 5th                                               2128

Okc 1st                                                3865

Okc 4th Branch                                        75

Okc 3rd                                                1773

Quail Creek                                           3272

Village                                                 13667        

August Indexing News

July and August Word Drought

There haven't been any posts to this blog for some time, since June as a matter of fact, and I apologize to my followers and those of you who occasionally read my posts. This has been a trying time for me. We had a death in the family the end of July which warranted a long trip to PA for a funeral. In August my husband had a total knee replacement and I am still busy taking care of him. I have to admit, to all of you, that I have not been doing much indexing. Stake wide our numbers are very low and I don't know why that is happening. I am praying that we can regain our momentum now that the youth have gone back to school.

I read several blogs about indexing and Ancestry.com and FamilySearch  they contain very exciting news about the future of indexing and family history. I would like to share some of that news with you.

 Boston, MA Temple taken by Bishop Bob Wooley

Cool  Family History Library Concepts of the Future

Diane C. Loosle is the new director of the Family History Library in SLC. "She is the first female director and the most qualified and capable to ever serve in this position" according to Don Anderson, FamilySearch Senior VP. Loosle's top priorities is the take all the Family History Research Centers and make them into Family Discovery Centers. She said " they need to offer fun experiences and activities for the entire family that will increase love, appreciation and understanding of their ancestors." The Family History Centers need to be more youth and family oriented. Changes will include the follow :

• Oral History Studios - where you can record your oral history and take it home on a jump drive.
• Photo Scanning stations -photos or documents can be scanned and can be uploaded into your Family Search account. Then you can go home and tag people and attach them to your tree.
• A Community Wall - a large touchscreen monitor  reflecting the locale and its history. You could share photos, recipes and so forth. It's your wall, your story.
• Story Center for Children - an interactive pop-up 3-D storybook.
• Monitors that will tell you things about your name- what countries your surname is found, etc.
• Computer stations - where you can still research your records on the internet.
• Time Machine - much like the holodeck of Star Trek, they hope it will be able to take people to places, such as an old blacksmith shop to learn what it was like to be a blacksmith in different time periods, 1830, 1850, etc. 

This sounds very exciting and a fun way to get the youth and families more involved with family history.  In the next 12 months FamilySearch, the Church, hopes to set up 3 - 5 of these new DISCOVERY CENTERS across the country. There is already one that you can get a sneak peak at  in Seattle Washington. Three Oral History Studios are already in operation in San Diego CA, Riverton, UT and Logan UT.  

I think this is a wonderful direction for Family Research to take.  At the present time the average age of a patron at the Family Search Center is 50 years, and they say that the youth don't feel welcome.  We are trying to make the youth feel welcome in our center and have offered many indexing sessions with various youth groups. Maybe more will come when it becomes a fun activity.

Last Wednesday night I was very pleased to see a young man from Quail Creek Ward come in to index for an hour. I was happy to be there to help him, and also a person that had never indexed was there and he wanted to learn, so I helped him. It is inspiring to me to be able to use my talents to help people with their family history research and with Indexing, which helps so many others. Our goal in the Stake is to help anyone who wants to index, learn how. How many callings have you had that offers so much help?

Family History Gathering and Stories

Summer Reunions and Family Stories

Summer is the time when most families get together and meet for family reunions. What a wonderful time to gather some family history information and stories of your ancestors. I always attend with a hand full of family group sheets and a completed pedigree chart. Most family members have no trouble helping me fill out a sheet for their family. If you aren't sure where to begin in writing your family story then you might be interested in attending this workshop down in Norman this Saturday.  

Nathan Brown, Oklahoma's poet laureate, will lead a workshop this Saturday, July 20th,

on preserving family stories at the Norman Public Library

at 10:00 a.m.  and at the Noble Public Library at 2:00 p.m. 

"Family Stories: How to Begin"

will feature tips on how to get started in research and recording of family stories

 that can be handed down from one generation to the next.

The workshops are free. No Registration is required.

Indexing Report from FamilySearch

FamilySearch recently reported that as an Indexing community we have completed 71,509,934

records, not names, (which could mean 10 - 50 names per record), this year!  Thank you from the Stake Indexing Group for helping to reach that total. I am very thankful for those who are indexing in our Stake.

You never know when the name you index may be the very name someone is looking for to document their family tree.  Below are a few recommendations from FamilySearch for new indexing projects. Try to look at them and see if you can find one you might like to work on.

• U.S., Texas, Del Rio-Allen Arrivals, 1906-1953  - Many cards are typed, if the first batch you down load is too hard, try another one. 
• U.S. Tennessee - Deaths 1956-1961
• U.S. applications for Headstones for Veterans 1941-1949 - read instructions about the way to index the back of the cards.
• U.S. Main - Vital Records Prior to 1892 for 80 Towns

Remember that a 3 level batch means you will have to add or mark lines blank, or no extractable data. A level 5 batch means you may have to add lines, and  that there are overlays that require special handling.

The Spirit of Elijah

A Special Video for the Youth 

and adults as well

At the Rootstech 2013 conference held in SLC last March, a heavy emphasis was placed on the youth and family history work. On Saturday over 2,000 youth attended special all day workshops on family history. There were also classes for Family History Consultants that day. What I learned from some of these classes was that the Church is promoting the calling of youth to positions as Family History Consultants. They are to work with the senior Consultants and to take family history into the homes of the members in their Wards and Stake. In turn they are to prepare their own names to take to the Temple.

June Indexing Results

Happy Fourth of July !!!!

Stake Indexing Cumulative for 2013

376,409

Ward total Indexing for June 

30,419

WARD                                                                TOTAL FOR JUNE

Clinton                                                                   1794

Edmond 1st                                                            2784

Edmond 2nd                                                            914

Okc 5th                                                                  3587

Okc 1st                                                                  4721

Okc 3rd                                                                 3972

Quail Creek                                                            4716

Village                                                                    4187

Woodward                                                             2597

YOUTH

Edmond 1st                                                               77

Okc 5th                                                                     10

Okc 1st                                                                    487

Village                                                                      946   

Suggestions for Easier Indexing Projects

If you are having a difficult time finding an indexing project that you can work on I would like to suggest you look at and try one of the following projects. There are lots of helpful examples under Project Instructions that clearly you show you what to do.  Look at these:

• US Massachusetts, Plymouth Colony Probate Index 1881 - 1939  (typed)  20 names/batch.

           TIPS: 

1.  If there are two names associated with a case, then put each name as a separate entry. You may need to go to tools to add another line.  
2.  If it is an adoption or name change and it says something like: "John Jones from John Edwards" then in  the Surname field put "  Jones or  Edwards" and in the Given name field put " John"  
3. Call me for help if needed.

• Massachusetts State Vital Records 1841-1920  Marriages, Births, Deaths ( some typed some handwritten all have been 1916 era with good handwriting) 

              TIPS:

1. Call me for help if needed.
2.  Do not assume the state name or county name, if it is not written on the record. 
3.  Father's surname is not on the birth records, do not put the child's surname for the father's surname, just tab past it.
4. If a child is recorded to have been "STILLBORN" do not use Stillborn as the given name. Put the word STILLBORN in the titles or terms field. Also if the child is reported to have been a "TWIN", put that in Titles or terms field.
5. You may need to add more lines for these records so go to TOOLS at the top of your page and choose NUMBER OF RECORDS PER IMAGE and add the appropriate number of lines.

Remember you can return any batch if you think it is too difficult . All batches are only keep in your work box for 7 days. After 7 days  it is taken back and any part that you might have started to index will not be counted toward your goal.  When you are finished with a batch it should automatically ask you if you want to submit it, click on OK. If you are not ready to submit it (maybe you have to ask someone a question about it) then say NO. When you are ready to submit it later, be sure you hit SUBMIT BATCH, not RETURN BATCH.  

On Line Family Trees

As most of you know Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com offer on-line family trees. FamilySearch is also using this same approach with their new FamilySearch Tree, which we all need to learn how to use. With these trees we are offered many possible matches with our own tree data. Right now I have over 5,000 possible smart matches with MyHeritage and hundreds of Shaking Leaves with matches in  my Ancestry.com tree. I am always getting emails from them saying they have found something new. Now for some this would be a wonderful opportunity or it might be a dreaded burden. How would you spend your time looking at all of those matches?

 First of all you need to look at your motivation. Do you really want to spend all day checking each and every one of them out, or do you just want to focus on the line you are working on at the time. I think I will follow the later idea and just work on the important ones. Those notices will stay out there and besides how do you even know if they are correct. You should  not  assume they are correct. Rather you should just use them as a guideline to future research. Never accept someone else's work unless there is documentation that you can follow and verify. Sources are the key to whether you should accept someone else's data.

You may ask why do I even bother with an Ancestry.com  or MyHeritage.com tree when it is all there in the  FamilySearch tree. For one thing, it is wise to have your family tree data in several different places to make sure it is going to survive. It also broadens your opportunity to collaborate with more folks. Personally, I like My Heritage because it is a company that started in Israel and  the eastern European genealogists have already entered their families. Which suggests to me that my family, that came from across the ocean, may connect with their families. Not only does MyHeritage connect to family trees but it also connects to documents like Old Newspapers and US Census records with a 97% accuracy.

Family Search Tree is adding features that makes it  very valuable  to all genealogist.  Features like the ability to add photographs and stories to your ancestors. They are working on the capability to add outside sources, like those you found in a courthouse and not on the internet. That would be wonderful since most people have a lot of those sources. The major attraction, for all genealogist, to FamilySearch Tree is that we know they are not going to be going out of business and our data will always be preserved. To me it is like putting it in the Granite Mountain Vault of computer bases.

Oklahoma's Mangled May Stake Indexing

Our deepest prayers go out to all of you who may have been affected by the terrible weather conditions we had in the month of May.  It surely is a time to give service to our neighbors and friends who need a helping hand and your support.

May Indexing Report by Ward/Branch

Total for Month of May =  54,943 Names  (and 49 returned batches)

• Clinton                                        2318
• Edmond 1st                                 6204
• Edmond 2nd                                3060
• Okc 5th                                        4121
• Okc 1st                                        5330
• Okc 3rd                                       6698
• Quail Creek                                 8890
• University                                          3
• Village                                         8714
• Woodward                                   9521    

Youth Indexing for May

• Primary Okc 1st                                172
• Youth Okc 5th                                       5
• Youth Village                                   1405

Indexing Project Suggestion

Suggestion for easy and fast records - level 1 - to do. This project would be good for the Youth who are going to work on the Young Women Olympic Challenge this summer.

Canada 1911 Census

Channel 5 News Anchors Genealogies

For those of you who did not get to see the Channel 5 presentations of the news anchors genealogy packages, prepared by  members of the Family Search Center, can do so by clicking on the links below. Paul Fogel and Jessica Schambach were very delighted when Donna Waddle , Sherry Brown, Lois Gilbert and Elizabeth Miller showed them the results of their research. Wendell Edwards and Maggie Stokes  were surprised to see how much material was found on the computer by Helen Lehmenn and Mary Lee Allen.

It was a very good experience for all of those who participated. I know that I learned a lot about researching in Puerto Rico and working as a team. To view the presentations that were aired on Channel 5 click on the links below.Each link is for a different presentation.

http://www.koco.com/news/oklahomanews/okc/wendell-learns-about-the-history-of-his-family/-/11777584/20194166/-/41t575/-/index.html

http://www.koco.com/news/oklahomanews/okc/Maggie-learns-about-the-history-of-her-family/-/11777584/20194356/-/nbiy51z/-/index.html

April Indexing Results and Digital Library

The April results are in for Indexing in the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Stake:

Stake Total for 2013  = 295,044

Month of April by Ward
72,710 total

• Clinton                                 2421
• Edmond First                       3114
• Edmond Second                  6164
• Okc Fifth                             3708
• Okc First                             9227
• Okc Third                            7578
• Quail Creek                        14863
• Village                                14290
• Woodward                           6744

Primary 

Okc First                                         244

Quail Creek                                       20

Village                                               30

Youth 

Edmond First                                  75

Okc Fifth                                        10

Okc First                                        50

Okc 3rd                                        133

Village                                         5539

Wychwood Branch Library in Canada photo from Wikipedia Commons

DIGITAL PUBLIC LIBRARIES

There is a newly implemented Digital Public Library of America ( DPLA) which became active last week. It is one of hundreds of such library portals on the web. What makes this one so significant is that one of the partners is the Mountain West Digital Library. Mountain West provides over 700,000 free on-line resources from colleges, universality's , government agencies, counties and municipalities in the western states region. 

Some other digital libraries include the California Digital Library, The African online Digital Library, The British Library online Gallery, The Cornell University Library,and the European Library. All of these are great places to look for books, many of which are not under copyright laws anymore and may be downloaded as PDF files to keep in your personal on-line library. Try using Google Books to find books about your family surnames.