Welcome To All Our New Keyers


We launched the World Memory Project almost a week ago. Since then thousands of keyers haved joined the Ancestry World Archives Project community. Together we have keyed over a half a million records this week, a large percentage of which were on collections from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

I am humbled and amazed at the contributions of this generous community! Despite the Nazis’ efforts to erase human history, millions of their victims stories are now being brought to light and will soon be online through your efforts.

Some of you have put in just a few minutes in the past week, keying one or two image sets. Some of you have spent eight, ten, even twelve hours a day keying hundreds of records. Every one of you is appreciated. Every record keyed counts. Every name recorded is another person remembered. The power of truth is in your hands.

If you visit the World Memory Project website you can keep track of how many contributors are involved with these specific record collections and how many records you have keyed collectively since we launched this project on May 3rd.

Until next time – Happy Keying!

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Reader Comments

Sadly I was one of the people who only keyed one or two. I thought I could handle the hand written documents but found that it was so important to get it right that getting it wrong was unacceptable. I too am humbled to be a part of something so important and this project dictates the utmost reverence.

I am honored to be able to participate in such an important project. Kudos to USHMM and Ancestry.com for joining to make such a project possible and for allowing people like me to participate.

I’m so glad that I can spend some time contributing to the USHMM project. I have friends whose parents watched as family and friends were taken by the Nazi’s. For them, and for all of us, thank you. Thank you for giving me the chance to share in the conservation of their history.

I am Glad to help with such a worthwhile project. It is difficult at times trying to read some of the documents, but I try. Again, thanks for the opportunity to paticipate.

I am grateful for this opportunity to contribute to the USHMM project. It isn’t easy to read the documents but I find after a few days certain difficult letters are becoming recognizable, especially when two documents have the same names but written by two different people. Thank you.

I am also new to this worthwhile project, I felt its was important that these names are recorded. I started off OK but now been marked down to the need to improvement mark. Some of the records contain written information that is very difficult to read, the spelling of words change from record to record. I record how the word is written and spelt even if I think that it is wrong. I also thought that we were encourage to attempt to record what you though the word was, am I wrong doing this or in future leave it for someone else. Help please, my emails to contact support come back with an error message.

@Joy, Bad handwriting is par for the course, that’s a universal truth of all records of any kind. Just do your best, and make sure you’ve filled out all available information.

Also, try this direct email for support

worldarchivessupport@ancestry.com

Sometimes when I come across a clearly written document, I wish that I could go back and correct the documents I already keyed incorrectly because I figured out the correct words.

I would like to work on the romanian project. i downloaded the programme but i don’t know what to do next.

I too downloaded a project, which was written in german. While I can translate it, unsure if the team is wanting the project keyed in german or translated or both. If someone has this answer, would be most appreciated.

I too appreciate the opportunity to work on such a wonderful project.

@cynthia

On some projects, the months are in English (others want months in the original language, so check instructions!), and yes/no lists are in English. But otherwise, we do not translate any data.

I am trying to get started with keying info, but I cannot find anywhere to key anything but the header.

How do I get to the form I need?

I joined this project because my own parents were survivors of Nazi persecution. After reviewing some of the documents, I can see how intimidating it can be to type the information in correctly. I am nervous about typing in handwritten documents because I don’t want to enter any erroneous information. I just started this, so I am hopeful that I will build up the confidence to tackle those documents at some point. But, I can’t stress enough how important it is that these documents are recorded. Not only do the victims deserve to be remembered, but surviving family members also deserves the right to know their fate.

I wish there was an easier way to read these message boards. I posted a question and it took me 15 minutes searching your site to find my original post because the boards are all over the place. Can they be consolidated?

Also, it would be very beneficial if there were list of the towns within each country. I know I could be more accurate if this list existed.

What about a wildcard for typing in the fields. Very often I can read 75% of the field, then I don’t enter the field because a small piece is illegible.

Often I find the same word spelled differently on separate documents. Do I key as seen or correctly spelled – one example is Beruit, Beyruit, Beruth, etc?

I am honored to be able to contribute to this important project. I am not Jewish, but have friends who are and I know what it would mean to many of them even to have a name and a place to start researching.

I have been keying for about a month. I started out with easy records just to get my feet wet. I haved moved on to the USHMM projects. It took awhile to figure out how to read the forms. I am very proud to be a part of this endeavor. I put in many hours most days and there are times I need to go to other records just to reconnect. I will continue to work on the Holocaust Records as these need to be made available for the families and the world so this never happens again.

I have downloaded the program so I can start helping, I tried doing a project that was picked for me, but it was in German and it was difficult for me to read. Maybe as I progress I will get better at this. I understand about the spelling, in my own hunt for my ancestors I have found some family names misspelled by the people who were recording the info.

In the Illegal Immigration to Palestine on the Memorandum of Personal Data page 1, under physical description where one just types yes, there is sometimes the number that is tattooed on an arm, meaning that they were in Auschwitz. I feel that it would be worth recording this data somewhere.
Also I hope that someone will translate the handwritten hebrew names on the Fingerprint slip page 2, where I have had to put illegible.

Found I was unable to interpret documents and so I have moved to immigration records. Sorry I could not do the first input however, what I am doing may free up some one more capable than I so the records are correct. Fun doing something worthwhile, thanks for the opportunity.

I have two little tricks that help me when doing repetive projects. Download a large set of 20 or so.
1-I keep a little notebook and write the names and locations as I go. I put boxes around the ‘defects’ or green boxes.
2- When finished I park it back in my que- don’t submit it! Finish going through the whole set. Then, review -fix- and submit what you can.

you would be surprised how many errors you can prevent, just by slowing it down a hair!

How can I use this and what good is it to me. I an=m searching my genealogy.

I have keyed a lot of the Romanian Project sets. As I know the language I am able to read the suffering in the individual stories. Everytime I read about the losses in the family and the suffering of the survivors I think of my grandparents fate. I also wondered if the same kind of Questionaires were filled in in Transylvania? Margo