Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Notes from census meeting - Day 3, part 2

Here are Irene's notes from the last day of our census meeting. Not very many of you left comments about how good the meeting was or how much you appreciated the work Janice and Irene put into their presentations. Please leave comments for them.

DEATH INDEXES: State Archives, Departments of Health, etc.
                        See what’s available on deathindexes.com
                        Look at time frames covered in the indexes
                        Look at the locations covered in the indexes
                        Judge how easy the index is to use
·         How fast can you find the search features?
·         How much time do you have left to search on your soldier’s family?
·         Use CTRL F to search and find instead of scanning and scrolling through a lot of information
                        Judge how valuable the information will be compared to what you have already from the mil info and what you’ve found on Ancestry and Family Search.
·         Will it give you any new death information?
·         Will it improve the quality code?
                        On indexes that only give a name, death date and place with no other identifying information…
·         Use cautiously
·         Use when you have narrowed down the likely death location (county)
·         Use when you have narrowed the death down to a relatively short time span (between censuses)
·         Best for uncommon names
·         Double check for others of the same name (of all ages) in the census year preceding the death
                        Check the URLs before saving to the tree and VCC death screen
·         When the URL doesn’t link to the individual records, copy and paste the URL from the search page and enter the search parameters in the ‘Other Information’ field on the tree and in the ‘Remarks’ field on the VCC death screen
Maryland State Archives:
                        State-wide coverage from 1898 – 1944
                        Choose appropriate time frame and first letter of surname
                        Index cards are arranged alphabetically by last name then by first name.
                        Since they take a little longer to search, make sure it will be worth your time by following the guidelines for using indexes that only give name, dath date and death place.
                        Do not use them when…
·         When they moved around a lot
·         When the name was very common
·         When there was more than 1 person with the same name in the county, especially in the census year previous to the death.

·         When you already have a death date and place from the mil info or another source like Find A Grave.

2 comments:

  1. Janice and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting everyone in the office. We are so happy to know your faces and personalities to go with your names now! You are all very kind, bright and competent. Thank you for hosting us. We enjoyed the other presentations and learned from many of you as well. The only thing that would have made it better is if we had the rest of our remote inputters there too! :)

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  2. Thanks for introducing us to deathindexes.com. It is so nice to have all of the collection links in one place. I know it will definitely speed up my research!

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