Talk:FamilySearch Indexing: US, Iowa-County Births, 1880-1935

Project Questions and Answers
Q. How do I index adoptive parents?

A. For this project (the US, Iowa—County Births, 1880–1935 project), first, index the birth parents; then, add a record, and index the adoptive parents. (See Knowledge Document 101228—How to add indexing lines [records] in a batch.)

Q. What do I do when parents and children are not on the same image?

A. When parents and children are on separate images, and you have the image with information about one or both parents but not about the children, do not index the record. Mark it as a No Extractable Data Image. The volunteer who indexes the image with the children's information will also include the parents' information.

If the image you are indexing contains the children's information, but not information about one or both parents, then do the following:


 * 1) On the menu bar, click View.
 * 2) Click Show Previous/Next Image. The previous or next image will be the image you see on the right side of the double screen.
 * 3) Make sure you click the Next Image button (otherwise you will be looking at the previous image, which will typically have information for a different set of parents).
 * 4) Type the information about the parents that is on the next image. The data to be indexed from the next image will typically be the names of the mother or the father or both.
 * 5) Return to normal view by click View on the menu bar and then Show Previous/Next Image.
 * 6) If the next image (with the parent information but not the child information) is also in your batch, mark it as No Extractable Data Image in the Image Type field.

Q. 'Some of the images show more parents than children and appear to be missing the bottom part of the document with the children's names. How do we index this?'



A. When part of the record is missing, such as the left page was cut off leaving only parents' names on the right page, add records and index the parents' names for each record. Leave the child's name blank.

Sample of image, left side, there isn't a child below black line, right side, which is the next image, the parents information was photographed below the black line. If you look at the surnames, you will see that the child and father match up, except the last one, which is the father that was photographed.

http://www.screencast.com/users/JuleneEvans/folders/Jing/media/762d265f-2246-4abb-934e-b680641e0005

Q.How do I index an overlay?

A. An overlay is a document that covers a portion of the original record. Review the information on the Project-Specific Indexing Instructions page for information about how to index overlays, or review the information on the Project Information tab in the indexing tool.

Q. Some of the images show more parents than children and appear to be missing the bottom part of the document with the children's names. How do we index?

A. When part of the record is missing, such as the left page was cut off leaving only parent's names on the right page, add records and index the parent's names for each record. Leave the child's name blank. Click 101442 "How to insert or delete lines while indexing."

Common Indexing Mistakes in This Project


 * On birth registers, indexing records that are partially covered by overlays. Index complete records only. The project-specific instructions have details on how the images with overlays are to be handled.
 * Not indexing the overlays first, or not indexing them at all.
 * Not indexing the certificate number found in the column on the left or right side of some birth registers.
 * Not adding enough records in the data entry area to account for all the records on the register or form.

Overlays (special cases)
Some batches that have overlays did not have those overlays removed on either the previous or next image when photographed. This made it so that there is not a complete line of data on either image, which means, that the information would not get indexed.

Suggestion Typically, two images are made of pages with overlays—one image with the overlay on the page and another image with the overlay removed. The instruction is to index only the records that are notpartially covered by overlays. The assumption is that the records that were covered on one image would be uncovered when a second image of the record was made without the overlay, and the information covered by the overlay would be indexed with the second image.

But when records span two facing pages, as they sometimes do in this project, with the child’s information on one page and parents’ information on another page, both images may have record information obscured by the overlay. If you follow the normal rules for indexing overlays, the record would not be indexed on either image.

So you may want to handle this unique situation differently.

If on your image, the child's information is covered and on the next image the parents’ information is covered, then index as much information as you can from the record, even if the record is partially covered by the overlay. You may need to view the previous or next image to get as much information as possible.

Place of Birth
http://www.screencast.com/users/JuleneEvans/folders/Jing/media/cc93e481-a766-49fa-bf00-864a94b80fad

I am sharing a shot I took of the Iowa Births. Up at the top, the registry has Place of Birth and then it lists 1-6. As you can see 2 is township, 3 is Village or City. If both 2 and 3 are filled in, the City is what we should put in. On these two examples showing in the image, the place of birth should be indexed as Castle Grove Township and Cass Township. You know from the key at the top of the column that line two is for a township, so please include the word township in the indexed field. Also if you ever see township after a name on other forms, please include the word township after the name.