Spring Forward inputting challenge - Update April 30, 2018

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

Project 1: 485
Project 2: 114

Total: 599

We're about 31 soldiers behind our goal, but a few people were ill or took vacations. You can still achieve this goal. Keep up the good work!

Spring Forward inputting challenge - Update April 23, 2018

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

Project 1: 417
Project 2: 102

Total: 519

We're about 21 soldiers behind our goal, but we still have time to reach our goal. Keep up the good work!

Household inputting order

I found a couple of instances of this recently, and I hope it is an artifact from way back when we didn't know what we were doing. Just in case there is lingering confusion, I thought I'd write a post.

This is the order you should input the household in every census decade:

1. The target person that you are searching for (that is the soldier, his child, or his spouse that he had children with)
2. The head of household
3. All the remaining people in the order in which they appear (just go from the top of the list to the bottom)

I've come across some households in which the our target person and his family were boarders in someone else's house. The inputter entered the target person and all his family, then input the head of household and the remaining household members. This is incorrect. 

It is very important that we input all households the same way and in the same order.

Make sure the children from the Mil Info are added to the Grid

In continuing my task of matching children on the Grid with children from the Mil Info, I came across the following.

I was able to match 9 children on the Grid with 9 children on the Mil Info. There was one more child on the Grid, Jesse M born in about 1877. There was also one more child on the Mil Info, Arthur born in 1886. The inputter seems to have decided that Jesse and Arthur were the same child. They were not. Jesse had died before the veteran filled out his family circular in 1898, so his name was not listed in the Mil Info. In 1900, the veteran's spouse said that she had 12 children and 9 were still alive. In all likelihood, Jesse and Arthur (he was not on the 1900 census with his family) are dead brothers.

Please don't assume that just because you've found 10 children in the census and there are 10 children in the Mil Info that they are the same 10 children. They might not be. Before marking the MilIN? button, make sure the information you have in the Mil Info matches (or nearly matches or somewhat matches) what you've found in the census or other records. There is no reason to assume that Jesse and Arthur are the same child. Nothing in the census or Mil Info supports that assumption.

In this case, a child from the Mil Info (Arthur) was left off the Grid. This is a major inputter error.

Spring Forward inputting challenge - Update April 16, 2018

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

Project 1: 357
Project 2: 89

Total: 446

We're about 4 soldiers behind our goal, so we gained a few soldiers over last week (when we were 14 soldiers behind). Keep up the good work!

Child in the Mil Info

As the Mil Info (pension) data is prepared to be added to the VCC data, I've been working on a list of names of people from the VCC data. I have to match the person from the VCC Grid to the person in the Mil Info.

I've noticed that sometimes the Mil Info says (CHILD) or (DAUGHTER) or (SON). DO NOT match this to a person on the Grid unless you have some identifying information. That is a birth date or a death date.

In one case, the soldier had three children on the Grid. The Mil Info listed (CHILD) twice. There was no other information about those two children. The inputter picked two of the children on the Grid and said they were the two children from the Mil Info. There is no way they could have known which two children were referenced in the Mil Info, so the MilIN? should NOT have been marked on the Grid.

In another case, there were two children on the Grid. The Mil Info listed (CHILD) twice. There was no other information about those two children. The two children on the Grid should not have had the MilIN? column checked, because there was no other identifying information. Even though you can't say those children were identified in the Mil Info, you don't have to add two extra children to the Grid. You have no evidence that the soldier had four children. You know he had two kids and two kids have been added to the Grid. I hope this makes sense.

When you mark a child (or anyone) on the Grid as being found in the Mil Info, that means there was information in the Mil Info that you were able to use to identify that child. If there is no identifying information, please don't mark that child as found in the Mil Info.

Egregious errors on the census manuscript - Age and Gender

Here's a reminder of what to do when there are egregious errors on the census manuscript.

If you find an egregious error on the manuscript, leave the field blank, and input the INCORRECT information in the Remarks field. You may do this for both AGE and GENDER/SEX. Here are a couple of examples.

Age: This is not for a difference of a few years. This is for situations when the manuscript says the individual is 7, but you know he is 80.

Gender/sex: If the manuscript lists Elizabeth as a DAUGHTER and a MALE, then leave the Gender blank, and input the INCORRECT information in the Remarks.

One inputter just had a situation where the veteran's sibling was Martha/Female in one decade and Matthew/Male in the next. Because they aren't people we search for, she is not taking the time to sort this out (nor should she). She has no way to know which is correct, so she will just input what she sees and make a SHORT note in the remarks explaining the situation.

If you're not sure, please ask your supervisor.

I'm sending out this reminder because our boss noticed that a lot of veterans' children were switching genders. Occasionally, this is legitimate because we can't figure out what gender the child is. If this is the case, enter what you see and make a short note in the remarks. Most of the time we know, and there is an error on the manuscript. When this happens, please follow the instructions above.

Death certificates from Missouri and West Virginia

From Sandy.

Please note that Missouri and West Virginia have fantastic websites where you can find death certificates.  We have been reviewing over 600 names of veterans and children in Project 1 who died in one of these states and who do not have death causes entered in the screens.  We are finding death certificates for almost all of them.   The sites are:

• Missouri Digital Heritage (for deaths between 1910 - 1966)  Link

• West Virginia (for deaths between 1853 - 1963) Link

Please use these death sources when you have deaths in one of these states.  

You may have noticed these sites sometimes linked to Ancestry or Family Search.  I have noticed that some people used the link from Ancestry which connects to the Missouri Digital Heritage site, but they apparently did not use the site to find the death certificate (and the cause).  Please click the link (see the example below) and fill out the information in the search fields using the death date and information from the indexed portion.  This will take you to the image of the death certificate.