Spring Forward inputting challenge - Update March 26, 2018

Here is our progress two weeks into our Spring Forward inputting challenge. Since March 10, we have completed the following number of soldiers:

Project 1: 153
Project 2: 36

Total: 189

Keep up the good work!

Death place - street

Just a reminder: In the Place of Death: Street field, input the street address or institution where the individual died. If the person died in a hospital, soldiers home, asylum, etc., that information should be entered in this field.

Spring Forward inputting challenge - Update March 19, 2018

We've been working on our new inputting challenge for about a week now. Here is our progress so far. Since March 10 (I gave you the weekend before the official challenge start date), we have completed the following number of soldiers:

Project 1: 77
Project 2: 20

Total: 97

Keep up the good work!

Reminder: Inputting times

This is just a reminder to watch your inputting times.

The general rule of thumb is one hour per child. So, if the soldier has five children, try not to spend more than about 5 hours on that soldier's family. You should never spend eight or 10 hours on a family this size. Check your time halfway through the work. If you're going too slowly, make an effort to speed up.

If the soldier has no children, please only spend one hour.

We are going into the last year of the grant period. An extra hour or two spent on one soldier means another soldier might not get any work at all. We are trying to finish most of the major data collection by October 1, 2018. That is not too far in the future.

Enhanced Images

Thanks to AnnaLisa and Robin for the following tip.

On ancestry, if a manuscript is really hard to read, try using the Enhanced Images setting. Sometimes doing this makes the manuscript magically appear. It's weird and it doesn't always help, but it might be a good thing to try before going to FamilySearch to search for the manuscript.  This tip seems especially useful for the Ohio census in 1860.

Also, sometimes the cursive is harder to read when using Enhanced Images, so this setting isn't always best.

Here is an example.

Without Enhanced Images:

With Enhanced Images:

February 2018 checking statistics

In February, we checked 28 soldiers under our system. 

I've reviewed all of the checks, and I've tallied the number of differences. Some of these are errors, and some are judgment calls. Here are the categories and the total number of differences for each category.

GRID Errors

MILIN?/MAR? - 4
Missing HH member - 2
Duplicate people - 1
Wrong person - 1
Other - 6

Inferred Relationships

Incorrect relationships - 8

Census Errors

Name - 5
Typo/Reading/Wrong - 33
State Code - 0
Missing/Wrong URL - 0
Missing data - 18
Additional finds - 14
Quality Code - 8

Death Errors

Typo/Reading/Wrong - 9
Missing data - 10
Missing/Wrong URL/Source - 2
Quality Code - 2
Additional finds - 7

Tree Errors

Missing/Incorrect information/relationships - 10

The total number of differences for all 28 soldiers is 140. This is 31 fewer differences than January, when we checked 31 soldiers. Some differences/errors affect the data more than others. If we checked other pensions, we'd probably find similar differences. Some mistakes are inevitable, but please pay close attention so that the number of errors can be minimized. Please make sure all the soldiers' children are searched and added to the grid.