Talk:FamilySearch Indexing: US—Index to Passenger Lists at Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, 1820–1874, Project Updates

In the first batch I'm working on,found one card with the father's name and nine other family members. Do I index only the father, or should I create separate records for each family member?

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Were the other family members listed on the "Accompanied by" line? If so, you do not index them.

&lt;fck:hr&gt;

Nationality Fields
Nationality examples and questions:

Expand abbreviatons of countries or nationalities. If it could go either way, we enter nationality (as I'm reading this). Therefore;

Ger = we type German (rather than Germany)

Germany = Germany

Gt Britain = Great Britain (not British)

Brit = British

Irish = Irish

Ire = Ireland (as it doesn't expand to Irish)

Fr = French

American = United States (about only one we can change)

Can = Canadian or Canada?

Eng = England or English (English is sometimes referred to as a nationality by it appears that British is preferred terminology.  English is not in the look-up list.  However, English is also a nationality in some circles.  Need clarification for Eng.

&lt;fck:hr&gt; Why would you index American as United States? Our nationality is referred to as American. &lt;/fck:hr&gt;&lt;/fck:hr&gt;

I understand most of that, but it makes no sense that American = United States, it clearly states to type the nationality of the passenger in the field help....it's pretty clear that American is a nationality (being an American myself) and it's not abbreviated.

Also I contacted Support &amp; was told if an abbr could be translated both ways (nationality or country) go with nationality...so Eng would be English &amp; Can would be Canadian...not England or Canada.

addressing nationalities
The Updates need to cover this. We (indexers and arbitrators) are a bit confused over nationalities. There should be a listing of standard nationalities. Like the ones below:

US = American

Fr= French

Ire Ireland = Irish

Ger= German

GB = British

Eng= English

Scot= Scottish (note: there is a North Scotland)

Wales= Welsh

NFL = Newfoundlander

NS = Nova Scotian

Italy = Italian

Spain= Spanish

I am sure many more could be used, these are the ones I have run into so far. Feel free to edit or add to the list.

Thanks

Terry

We really need some updates to this project or some instructions that are more clear.

Here are the questions I have (and I'm sure other indexers and arbitrators will have):


 * 1) You have said for Ire put Ireland. And for Ger put German.  That is too arbitrary.  You have indexers putting both because there are no clear instructions.  Do you want nationality or country - you must pick one or else arbritrators will arbritarily pick one and make all of the indexers angry.  The understanding I have is you want nationality but if a person can't tell, you want country.
 * 2) What do you want if the nationality/country is US. Do you want American, United States written out or US with no spaces?
 * 3) What do you want if the nationality is Nova Scotia, Eng, Great Britain ...
 * 4) We really need a list of vessels in the lookup or somewhere else. It is very difficult to discover the name of the vessel from the written word.
 * 5) Regarding the arbitrating: some indexers are putting a blank instead of tabbing.  How does an arbitrator choose tab when neither indexer did?

= Nationality =

Looks like FSI finally put clear instructions under field help. there's also a link (in field help) with examples &amp; more information on how to index nationality/country....the entire field name has been changed from Nationality to Country of Birth or Nationality. Hopefully there will be less confusion on this matter

Now if anyone knows any good websites for immigration ship names, that would be helpful....some are hard to read and the look up list doesn't have a lot of info yet. Big thanks FSI