The computer age is great for genealogy as technology allows us to research as we sleep, work, and play. FamilySearch uses algorithms to search its vast amount of records to determine if they match the people in your family tree. The FamilySearch blog article “Use Record Hints” states that “FamilySearch is constantly scouring their digitized, indexed records to identify records that may match your family—and these blue boxes signal to you that they might have succeeded.”
When dealing with record hints, it is important to remember:
· Information on the Record Hint may not be right.
· If you are not sure the Record Hint matches your person, don’t attach it.
· Don’t attach the Record Hint without looking at the actual record. Remember, the image often has more information than the index, and you can usually learn new details about the person and their family. Many researchers are finding that if they print off a family group record with the sources included they will find more information such as birth, death, and marriages with complete dates. This information may consist of spouses for your couple’s children too. Some have found children they did not know existed.
· If there is more information on the Record Hint, but it doesn’t give you the option to “Add” it over, go back to the person’s main profile page, and add it yourself. Having a notebook nearby is helpful to write down the information you need to add to your person as you study the Record Hint.
· Many records in FamilySearch are indexed more than once. Still, attach the record even if that means there will be two or three of the same record.
· There are many significant databases not accessed by the Record Hints. Many databases have not been indexed yet and are image only, so you will have to search them yourself.
· You need to standardize the dates are as follows: day, the full name of the month, and year. The location needs to be standardized too. FamilySearch will give you a hint on how they want this information standardized. If your data is standardized, you will get more record hints.
If you clean up your family tree by standardizing your information, the algorithms FamilySearch uses can find more Record Hints. This allows FamilySearch to research for you as you sleep helping you find more ancestors. Technology is amazing!
0 comments:
Post a Comment