Sign up for FamilySearch Indexing

Have you ever thought any of these statements?

· I don’t have time to do family history.

· My grandmother did all of my family history.

· I work at the family history center, but I run out of things to do when there are no patrons.

· I’ll wait and do my family history when there are more original records available on the Internet.

· I don’t know how to get started with my family history. What’s a census?

The response to all of these statements could be—“Sign up for FamilySearch indexing!”

FamilySearch indexing allows an army of volunteer indexers from around the world to help preserve and make the records of our ancestors available online for research. Using our online system, these volunteers are easily able to extract data from valuable records and provide free searchable indexes—all from the convenience of their homes.

Anyone can help at any time. Volunteers do not need to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They simply need to register, sign in, and follow a simple process:

1. Select “batches” of records to download to their computers.

2. Enter the requested information (names, dates, events, etc.) in the corresponding spaces.

3. Submit the completed batches to the online system.

Here are some of the benefits of being a volunteer indexer:

· You don’t have to be an expert genealogist. New indexers and genealogists can become familiar with the types of information available on a census record or other vital documents by doing indexing.

· There are no fixed time commitments. Volunteers can index any time and for any amount of time that they want. Some indexers volunteer an hour a day; others volunteer five minutes a week. All are welcome and appreciated.

· Help FamilySearch publish more records online. The more volunteers that help index, the faster records will be made available online to researchers.

· If you’ve hit a roadblock or you feel that all your family history is complete, become part of the indexing community. Help make records available for others to do their family history.

· Index while you are at the family history center. Family history has many facets, including indexing, and many family history centers already have the indexing system installed on their computers. If there are no patrons at the center to assist, use your free time to index.

We are currently indexing over 70 different collections of records from 28 different countries and 10 languages. The FamilySearch indexing Web site and computer program are available in the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. To sign up for FamilySearch indexing or to learn more about the program, go to http://indexing.familysearch.org.

We greatly appreciate those who donate their time and talents through the FamilySearch indexing program to help make these collections of records freely available online to researchers.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch

support@familysearch.org

U.S. and Canada: 1-866-406-1830

International: go to http://contact.familysearch.org for more toll-free phone numbers.

What classes are offered at BYU and when?

This is pretty cool. BYU has now set up their own blogspot blog to display their schedule for classes. I've attended a couple, and these are very informative.

Go check them out at byusunday.blogspot.com

PAF vs. NFS

I was sitting in Sunday School today, and there was a bit of confusion among those who are just getting into NSF. The question discussed was whether we needed PAF or other softwares to do this work. Nope, not this work. NSF is for the deceased. PAF is for the living.

If you're doing your own genealogy, and you're developing your family records, you want the names, dates, and places to be correct.

If you're trying to make sure the work is done for your ancestors, does it matter where or when they lived and died? If you could ask them right now, would it matter to them? All that matters is the work is done for the right person, right? And it doesn't even matter when the work is done, only that it really is done.

PAF is for the living. That's where you record all your family history, with pictures, biographies, dates, places, etc. NFS is for the deceased, to make sure all the work is completed in an orderly, duplicate-free manner.

As I'm only now getting into my family history (I really should be keeping a journal), PAF is new to me, and keeping such records is a bit daunting. Since I've been called as a specialist and have dived into NFS, it's already pretty familiar to me and I'm very comfortable with it. I've now hit a point where I need to do the research to extend my lines. I'm going to be spending time at the Family History Library in the coming weeks (any good Irish researchers out there?), and I'll be spending a lot more time in PAF.

Oh--one other thing--PAF is free too. It sits on your computer, so it's not online. You can download it here.