I'm hooked...

Well, I'm officially hooked on the church's internet indexing program. DH had mentioned the program a few times (the people who are working on the program work with DH down in Orem), but for some reason I thought that it was not something that I could do (at least not yet) or would take more time than I had. Then when DH's family were all staying at our house in January for his grandfather's funeral, we got into a family discussion on doing family history work. DH mentioned the program of internet indexing again and DH's sister-in-law Chez really expressed interest in it. When she got back home she was eventually able to get signed up online and wrote a blog about it. When I read the blog, I thought why don't I try it as well. Well, I signed up online and have been hooked ever since. It's a lot easier than I thought it would be and extremely flexible. You can sign up online and then you go through the online tutorials. Then once you receive your user name and password from the church, you can download the FamilySearch Indexing program and start indexing. It is AWESOME!! You can download up to 5 "batches" at a time which for me so far have consisted of one sheet of a census record from the 1900 census which contains 50 lines on it. They give you a week to index each batch and once you're done you upload the indexed info back to the church's server. The batches are set up so they should only take about 30-60 minutes each to index. The absolute beauty of the program is that you can work on it for as little or as much time as you have. You don't have to complete a batch during one sitting. You can start on it and then leave the computer and come back to it when you have more time. Another thing to know is that each batch is indexed twice. Then if there are discrepencies between the two indexings, it goes to an arbitrator who decides which entries are correct.

I signed up a couple of weeks ago and find myself working on it off and on throughout the day. Our computer is in a very accessible location for me so I can jump on it any time and do a little indexing here and there when I have a few minutes. I did a lot while I was listening on the computer to some of the Utah Senate floor sessions when the midwife bill was still alive... I also find myself choosing to use my time to do some indexing instead of sitting and watching T.V. when there is really nothing on at night.

So, if I've perked your interest, here is a link to sign yourself up:


Family Search Indexing


All you really need is a computer and an internet connection. You don't even have to be a member of the church to participate, so if any of you have non-member friends who have caught the genealogy bug, send the info on to them too. Hopefully with everyone working together, the church can get more records indexed and help make family history work that much easier for everyone. DH says that the program will be officially announced in June or July, but right now it is just being spread by word of mouth. So go ahead and start spreading!! (If any of you sign up and have questions about how to enter info let me know. I had to ask some questions because I didn't think the online tutorials or help were very clear or comprehensive enough on some cases. I'm working on trying to get some changes made since DH has an "in" since he knows the engineers.)

**A Word of Warning**
**Internet Indexing is very addictive, so don't let it take away from your spouse and/or family time!!**