Fred Bob Longbottom

Happy National Get Out of the Doghouse Day!

So...

Guess what.

I began indexing! Whatta party.

Indexing is "the process of creating indexes for record collections. Having indexes allows researchers to more quickly find records for specific individuals; without them, researchers might have to look through hundreds or thousands of records to locate an individual record."

Basically, I look at a photocopied document and electronically fill in the information online so that you can more easily search for information. The records I have been working on are from the 1940 census, and dang did those Feds need to practice their handwriting. Cursive can be extremely unreadable, you know.

It is amusing to create stories based on the information. For example, the records give age, status (married, divorced, widowed, etc.), place of birth, place of residence, race, etc. So, I can gather that Fred Bob Longbottom the third lived in Arkansas with his wife, three kids, nephew, mother-in-law, and a boarder who was from the Bronx. Then, I have the freedom to create the rest of their tale - how the mother-in-law illegally sells pudding to the Russian Mafia and therefore mysteriously disappears two years after the census; and Little Sally feels resentful as the middle child and lives the rest of her life ignoring the presence of her siblings who don't have a clue as to why they don't receive any Christmas cards from Little Sally.

Pretty fun.

My favorite record so far was a collection of orphans - how did I know they were orphans? Their status was "ward" and they were all 18 and under. Same roof, different last names.

Each "batch" takes me around 20-30 minutes - and it is much more enjoyable than I first thought.

At church, our goal was for each youth to do one batch a week this summer, but Abby and I didn't begin until yesterday. So far I have completed six batches, and I hope to get even more by the end of this week.

Try it.

I dare you.

xoxo,
McCall

Happy National Get Out of the Doghouse Day!

So...

Guess what.

I began indexing! Whatta party.

Indexing is "the process of creating indexes for record collections. Having indexes allows researchers to more quickly find records for specific individuals; without them, researchers might have to look through hundreds or thousands of records to locate an individual record."

Basically, I look at a photocopied document and electronically fill in the information online so that you can more easily search for information. The records I have been working on are from the 1940 census, and dang did those Feds need to practice their handwriting. Cursive can be extremely unreadable, you know.

It is amusing to create stories based on the information. For example, the records give age, status (married, divorced, widowed, etc.), place of birth, place of residence, race, etc. So, I can gather that Fred Bob Longbottom the third lived in Arkansas with his wife, three kids, nephew, mother-in-law, and a boarder who was from the Bronx. Then, I have the freedom to create the rest of their tale - how the mother-in-law illegally sells pudding to the Russian Mafia and therefore mysteriously disappears two years after the census; and Little Sally feels resentful as the middle child and lives the rest of her life ignoring the presence of her siblings who don't have a clue as to why they don't receive any Christmas cards from Little Sally.

Pretty fun.

My favorite record so far was a collection of orphans - how did I know they were orphans? Their status was "ward" and they were all 18 and under. Same roof, different last names.

Each "batch" takes me around 20-30 minutes - and it is much more enjoyable than I first thought.

At church, our goal was for each youth to do one batch a week this summer, but Abby and I didn't begin until yesterday. So far I have completed six batches, and I hope to get even more by the end of this week.

Try it.

I dare you.

xoxo,
McCall