Talk:FamilySearch Indexing:US, County Marriage Records, Project Updates

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Many commonly asked questions, such as indexing crossed out information, have already been answered in the Basic indexing instructions.

License cover pages (Minnesota and Tennessee). Sometimes they state: "Recorded on Mo/Day/Yr, Book _______, Page ________. There is no entry on the form for the book - should this page number be indexed? The field help states "Type the page number or certificate number where the record appears." "Basic indexing instructions" says that "If a date is missing for the event you are indexing, determine at least the year of the event, if possible. Records are often listed chronologically by year. If available, check the records just before and just after to determine the year." I asked on Facebook and Elmer said that sometimes arbitrators don't understand how this rule applies to the PA County Marriages and have deleted the year from records indexed. The most confusing thing to me is when there are multiple images for one marriage. It seems silly to me to have a record on familysearch.org for a paper with the couples names and license number, then another image with that same data and a stamp of when it was filed, and then a record of the license with the ages indexed and then another record with the actual marriage date indexed from the image. 4 seperate images with 4 seperate records, but only one shows the ages, and only one shows the marriage date. Would this not be confusing to users? '''Our responsibility as indexers is to link a name to any image we are indexing. It is not up to us to determine which document has merit. A family member would probably want a copy of every document that pertains to their family. The best way to find the document would be through good indexing. '''And how should we apply the rule of coying the date from other images? Just the year or the complete date? '''The event YEAR Field Help is the only one that instructs to go to a previous or next image. Day and Month Field Helps do not'''. Sometimes I think rules stop us from indexing by principle. What if I am on familysearch.org doing research and find an image of a paper with the names of a couple and no date, but the index has the date. I'd be confused why the image does not match the index. Is there no way to link the images for the same marriage packet together? There are so many questions. Project updates take precedence over other directions or guidelines. Support does not determine project instructions. New Question.. See Share Batch 148977798 PA County Marriages. Does the Marriage License certificate number referred to on the Marriage Return certificate get indexed? See: Image 3 &amp; 5 and also images 6 &amp; 8. Image 5 is the marriage return which refers to the certificate number of Image 3. Image 8 is the marriage return which refers to the certificate number of Image 6. Index the certificate number mentioned on the marriage returns? Or not? '''If the certificate number is on the document it is indexed. '''The marriage returns in these examples were originally attached to the marriage license.. but then are detached by the marriage officiator and returned to the County Clerk.

GB.... please check with the marriage team... yoiur replly is not true in most cases on other documents.. The number on the Marriage Return is not the certificate number of the Marriage Return.. It is the Certificate number of the Marriage License that the Return REFERS  to. IN ALL OTHER INDEXING Cases...  a certificate or page number on one document that REFERS to the actual other document.... the number is not used..

Yes, it is easy to just say if a number is on a document just to index it... but that simply is not always the case.. especially when the number refers to the number of another certificate. That is why I would like clarification from the marriage team. I can see the argument for both sides here... but to read the question without taking a look at the example and giving it some thought... does not really address the issue. So, please give the question and shared batch and image numbers to the marriage team for their answer. Thank you.

'''Thanks for your reply. We need to do a better job of helping those who are kind enough to pay a visit to the wiki know that all updates, project instructions, helps and reponses are not generated by those of us who try to keep these pages current. The material comes directly from, or is approved before posting, by those resposible for the projects. The approval for the responses to your questions came directly from the Project Folks. I am sorry if we haven't communicated that as well as we should have.'''

That is fine.... but sometimes replies from Support seem to be just "gut replies from support" rather than someone on the project team taking the time to look at the specific examples or question and making a determination. With my question... Since there are indexers that do not index that number and there are indexers that do index the number... Maybe the information to index that number on the Marriage Return (which is another documents certificate number) should be posted on the County Marriages update page.. Heretofore, as an arbitrator, I have been going with the indexer that does not index the number... since the number is not actually the number of marriage return it appears on. Thank you, GB.

PS... What I mean is to state that on the main Update page and also include an example image of one of these marriage returns with the number of the license included... in the pdf slide show Presentation on how to index this project, which appears on the Additional Helps page.

Pennsylvania Marriage Records have a document called Application for Marriage License. It has a certificate number at the top and a page number at the bottom. The field helps say to index the page number when there is both, but I take that to mean on registers. Other documents in the batch may refer to the same marriage but have only a certificate number. It makes more sense to index the certificate number because the page number is essentially meaningless in the circumstances. Please clarify this issue. Share batch 151295982 for an example. Thanks. It looks like I'm not the only one with a question about this -- but I'm not real sure what your answer was. We will check but cannot get an answer until Monday.

Please add answer to update pages. I just posted the same question on the forum re: PA marriages - Do we index the cert. # ? or page below.? . The question above about "Recorded on Mo/Day/Yr, Book _______, Page ________. relates to several other states as well..

posted on forum: I am indexing a batch of PA marriages and have a few questions about page / cert. numbers. Please see share batch 151384451.

1) Image 2-1 has a number at the top and below a docket with a page number Post docket no. ___ pg. ____ (I have seen this in other states, but do not remember a definitive answer) 2) Image 4-1 has the same number at the one at the top of 2-1

Which of these numbers should be indexed or should neither be indexed?


 * I believe per the instructions that we are only to index the page number when it is the page number of the document we are indexing, not a reference to the page number where that document was recorded in another place. Just like when we are indexing an index, we don't index the page number shown in the index entry -- we index the page number the index entry is found on. So disregarding the page number reference, we are left with the certificate/license number--Garymaher 14:51, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Gary -- Thank you for that answer which is reasonable. The images seem to have moved beyond the batches I was speaking of, but the indexers were very confused and trying to follow the directions to index page number. I was hoping that I was indexing/arb correctly but began to wonder. :)

Marriage Cancelled or Not Executed

How is the best way to index this? Do I say no extractable data, or is there another way to handle this?