Learning Blog 6 – "Needle in a Haystack"

Learning Blog 6 – "Needle in a Haystack"

I still haven't found any luck with finding some of the family members but I also only have about an hour a week that I can look at the microfilm where the information lies.  It's really like finding a needle in a haystack. 

This analogy brings me to something that I have learned that I never understood before.  Many times I've been asked to help "index" for familysearch.org.  I had this idea in my mind that i would need to go to a special room and typed things. Yea, that's the extent of what i thought it was, and I obviously don't have time for that :) 

I finally understand what indexing is! Family search has millions of images of records. These records include documents such as birth certificates, death certificates, censuses, and marriage licenses from all around the world.  The documents are what everyone needs to make connections in their family trees.  The first step has been for family search to get the microfilms imaged to be available online.  (I'm still waiting for most of the records I need from Natagaima, Colombia.) Once the images are online it's wonderful....but the problem is that they are not searchable.  This means that a person can spend hours and hours viewing images to find their ancestors, hence the hunt for a needle in the haystack.  When people index they are viewing the images online and typing in the information such as names and places that they see in the image.  After the information is typed it now becomes searchable and wha la!!! The name that was a needle in the haystack is found within seconds because it could be searched. 

The amazing thing is that anyone can index from their home computer.  They just download the program from familysearch.org and type what they see.  Each person does a "batch" which is part of a larger "project".  A batch usually takes around an hour.  

I realized that I would be so much happier if my information was already indexed so I decided to join the cause! These are some of the statistics: 

I've joined a Colombia project for Baranquilla, which is the city where my husband is from. The hard thing is some of the records are VERY DIFFICULT to read.  Here's an example: 

 Crazy huh! I know that I've talked about it before but I still just keep going back to the zone of proximal development.  Genealogy is not most effective with just me doing it.  It's effective when thousands of people work together and get more done because they share their knowledge.  The more I read of Vygotsky the more I agree with him.  Most of my learning has been from my social environment when it comes to family history. I also feel like MOOCs have had a place in my learning.  It's been very helpful to be able to find instructional information online.  Technology had really brought our times to a new level when it comes to learning.