Project of the Day – Challenge 1, Kansas, City and County Census, 1919-1978


Challenge Winners:

Keyer: Georgine H of California and a very close second, Pat A of Ontario

Reviewer: Jane F of Texas

During the challenge 151 contributors keyed 68,757 records and reviewed 62,801 records – a total of 131,558 records!!!   We reviewed 5 times the number of records than the same days last year.

Thank you to all who participated.

 

The Kansas, City and County Census, 1919-1978  is a popular project already but we are off to a great start for the Challenge.  Last year between the two days we completed 76 review image sets and 430 keying image sets.   So far this year we have completed 93 review image sets and 52 keying image sets!!  I am confident we will blow last years numbers out of the water.

If you haven’t keyed or reviewed this project I encourage you to take a few minutes, okay maybe a half hour, and try an image set or two. They are relatively name dense – depending on the specific record type you encounter but they are relatively easy to key.

Enjoy the Challenge!!

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April 2nd, 2013
34 Responses
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Reader Comments

Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Georgine Herd
Posted on:
April 2, 2013 at 5:52 pm

I’m glad this project is being featured. I’ve been working on it since forever (it seems) and I’m glad that others will help get it closer to completion.

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
VLuckow
Posted on:
April 2, 2013 at 7:45 pm

No kidding it just seems to never end. I work on it almost daily, some days I have more patients than others, the writing of some of them is terrible.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
afechter
Posted on:
April 2, 2013 at 10:38 pm

We launched this project Jan, 2012 so it has been around for a while. Like the NY Naturalisations it is set to take about 3 years to complete. With Challenges and other features I am hoping that maybe we can complete it in closer to 2 years.
Yes, the handwriting could be neater and the image quality a little better but it is still a fun project to key.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
gberling
Posted on:
April 4, 2013 at 6:13 am

Is there a column to put in the addresses on the census form? Looks like there are only columns for Given and Surname.

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
paulmd199
Posted on:
April 4, 2013 at 9:19 am

@gberling

There is not an Address column on this project.

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
Elaine Neel
Posted on:
April 4, 2013 at 2:21 pm

This is right up my alley. I was born and raised in KC, Mo (we will skip the year, but suffice it to say the decade we are working on) so some of the names, townships, etc are very familiar.

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
mjhksh
Posted on:
April 5, 2013 at 8:19 am

Does anyone know, when it has Mr & Mrs on a line…do you key them separately since you can only Key in either Mr or Mrs ?

Comment Number:
8
Written by:
afechter
Posted on:
April 5, 2013 at 9:01 am

If they are listed as Mr and Mrs William Jones you would enter two records, one for Mr William Jones and one for Mrs Jones.

Comment Number:
9
Written by:
chris
Posted on:
April 5, 2013 at 9:06 am

Too much focus on speed. I have been keying these records too and agree with Georgine BUT I wish you wouldn’t encourage rushing. That’s what the project of the day etc. does, even if it’s not the reason you started them. Anyone who uses the database as a family history researcher knows that there are already lots and lots of errors – especially in the Welsh records from my experience. It is not all caused by handwriting difficulties. Please please please – this is too important to rush!

Comment Number:
10
Written by:
mjhksh
Posted on:
April 5, 2013 at 11:53 am

Thanks afechter…..crap, I should have asked that before I did a set….

Comment Number:
11
Written by:
leftwichjo
Posted on:
April 5, 2013 at 7:09 pm

I have been keying and reviewing this project for a long time, but enjoying it. My main gripe is that a lot of records are being skipped by keyers not matching the number of names on the form with the number they have keyed. Also using the look-up dictionary is not being done enough. I am still cheerful, however.

Comment Number:
12
Written by:
KarenR
Posted on:
April 6, 2013 at 2:32 pm

I agree with Chris. I have been working on this project and sometimes look at a name for a while trying to get it keyed right.Some of this handwriting is tricky! Speed isn’t always a good thing. Accuracy should be of more importance

Comment Number:
13
Written by:
Pattie
Posted on:
April 8, 2013 at 11:17 am

I went to key in a set but was intimidated as I couldn’t make out half the names. What is the procedure as I would really like to help with this project.

Comment Number:
14
Written by:
afechter
Posted on:
April 9, 2013 at 10:43 am

Chris, Karen, and all,
I appreciate and share your concerns but after watching the reports and asking many of the contributors who participate the conclusion I have drawn is that contributors spend more time during the challenges than they typically would but don’t necessarily move through the image sets faster. And yes, some contributors download image sets and complete them offline then submit them during the challenge.
For the Kansas Census Challenge we actually had less records keyed than the same time period a year ago but many more records were reviewed as there were a few long time reviewers who contributed 6-8 hours a day during the challenge.

leftwichjo,
I agree that matching the number of lines on the record to the number of records entered in the keying tool is a good check to make sure no names were missed. With long lists of names it is especially easy to skip over a name.

Pattie,
If you download an image set that you cannot read there are two actions you can take.
1. Cancel the image set and put the reason of Poor Image Quality
2. See if you can adjust the contrast and brightness of the image to make it easier to see the names, and do your best entering what you can read. Along with this option you may find it helpful to post screen shots on FB, the wiki or the message boards asking for others interpretation of the name.