Wordless Wednesday

Research Strategy: Tabbed Browsing

     When I'm doing genealogy research online, I often find that when I come across unexpected finds, I'm easily distracted from what I set out to do. Sometimes when I follow the new research I can loose track of where I originally meant to go.  To help me get back on track I utilize tabbed browsing in my research.

     What do I mean by tabbed browsing? It is having multiple web pages open in one browser window. It means that almost every time I click on a link on a genealogy site, I open that page in a new tab in my browser window. Here's a screenshot of this morning's research:

     You can see that I have two different browser windows open, each of them with multiple tabs. Each tab is a different step in this morning's research.

• I started off looking at Agriculture census records for my ancestor, James Shiflet. Two tabs: the Agriculture search results and 1860 Agricultural census page.
• I realized that I had not saved a copy of his 1950 and 1960 census records to my computer. Three new tabs: the Population Census search results and 1950 and 1960 census page.
• The Ancestry.com Georgia Census images for 1950 are terrible. I opened a new browser window and went to FamilySearch.org. Two tabs: a General Search for James Shiflet and the 1950 census page.
• I got distracted by another results from the general search and opened one additional tab: James' daughter's death certificate.

     At this point I have all of my research laid out in front of me. I never have to use my back button. I never have to re-key my search forms. I never have to re-load images. I never forget what I was originally searching for.

     To open my new tabs I simply hold down the command key (⌘) and click on the link.  On a windows computer this would be the control key or you can right click on the link and select "new tab" from the menu.

Non-Population Census Schedules on Ancestry.com

     For some time, Ancestry.com has had a few states worth of Non-Population Census Schedules online. I found a lot of relatives in their South Carolina records and waited patiently for the Georgia records to go online. I could have accessed these in person at the Georgia Archive, but there are so many records other there that I had not gotten around to them.  Then I didn't bother to get around to them since they didn't have an index and Ancestry.com announced that they would be putting the GA records online in 2011. Well, that didn't happen. But on May 21st the Non-Population database was updated and the GA records arrived. Yay!

     Well, not so much "yay" as "what the...?" There are some problems with the Georgia index. Some somewhat serious problems that could impact researchers.


     First: badly indexed names.  Now, some of this is due to bad images. I browsed a number of pages that were extremely difficult to read, probably based on bad microfilm copies. I'm sure the original records were destroyed long ago, so Ancestry can only work with the current microfilm. But the indexing problems go well beyond that.

     See the image on the right? I think the name of my 3x Great-Grandfather is pretty clear: "R T Smith." Maybe the indexer might not get the "T", but otherwise it's pretty easy. Apparently not. The only thing the indexer got right was the "T"! They turned the "R" into a "B" and "Smith" into "Chnith."

     There is no way that anyone searching for Smith would find this record. So how did I find him? I searched for my ancestor's neighbors in the corresponding population census, using the FAN Club approach to search for Friends, Associates & Neighbors.

    Most of them were indexed badly as well, but at least "Brnmbelo" is close enough to "Brumbelo" to be found via soundex. Once I found this record I went through a portion of the page adding corrections to the names. Although this is the worst example that I've found so far, many of my other ancestors have indexing errors that should have been pretty obvious.

     Second: mixing up the 1860 and 1850 records. I really don't understand how this happened, but let me start with a screenshot:

     As you can see in the image, I was searching for anyone with the surname "Boatright" in Emanuel County, Georgia in 1850. I got results back for both 1850 and 1860.  If I do the same search, but in 1860, I don't get any results. So it seems that the 1860 records have been placed in the 1850 category.  Further, when you save an 1860 record to your family tree, it is saved with an 1850 date.  This is not the only example of this that I've run across and I have reported this error to Ancestry.com.

     So, if you are searching the Non-Population Census Schedules on Ancestry.com prepare to do some creative searching. I'm finding my ancestors and I'm coming up with some great information, but it's more difficult than it should be.

My 1940 Census Indexing Progress

     The 1940 Census is 57.84% finished, thanks to volunteers using the Family Search Indexing software. There are 18 searchable states and a number of other states at 100% that are going through the final steps. Wouldn't you know, pretty much all of these are states are ones that I'm not interested in. Sigh....

     So that means that I'm still going at it. Georgia is at 36% and currently working its way through Atlanta. South Carolina is running a little further behind at 23%.  Although I don't index every day, I do try to do some a few days a week.

     It's fun to see what I've accomplished: 2,840 names indexed and 4,480 names arbitrated. Arbitrating can be a lot faster, though sometimes it can be more difficult. I tend to do a few batches of arbitration and then do an indexing batch.

     Yesterday, I got an email from FamilySearch Indexing, letting me know that there were new achievement badges available.  I have indexed and arbitrated 1940 Census records from 15 states! I know that there are some folks out there who made a point to index a batch from every state, which is pretty impressive. I'm happy to see my Delaware badge, which shows that I was in it from the start. Here are all of my badges: