It’s no surprise to anyone who knows me that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE genealogical research, but as a fulltime missionary I do not have time or access to records. "It will just have to wait until I get home," I have told myself numerous times since arriving in Guyana. But, an article ("A Call for Indexers Worldwide") in the March 2012 “The Liahona” magazine recently caught my attention. Indexing has now become my new favorite hobby!!!Indexing is the process of reading digitized versions of physical records – such as census, vital, probate and church records – and keying the information each record contains into an online searchable database, making it possible for members and other family history researchers to easily locate their ancestors’ information on the internet.
Since this program was first introduced in 2006, volunteer indexers have transcribed 800 million records. But the work is far from done. The Granite Mountain Records Vault in Salt Lake City (in Big Cottonwood Canyon, not far from our home in the Granite Ward in Sandy) has more than 15 BILLION records filmed and waiting for indexing.
I have set a personal goal to transcribe 2000 records before we leave for home on June 27, 2012. It is quick and easy to do. So far I have transcribed 265 Texas death records for the year of 1957!
It is something I can do in quiet moments in the evening, the early morning hours when I can't sleep or while traveling in the car. It is so much more fun and rewarding than playing Solitaire!!!
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