World Archives Project

Would like to become a reviewer if possible, thank you.

I think it would be a good idea to have days attributed just to reviewing. For example, giving a prize to the person who reviews the most records. I know you do these incentives already, but if you were to have them more frequently it may help the reviewing backlog.

On some of these, the difficulty level needs to be increased. The one that immediately comes to mind is the Kansas Census project. This is listed as easy, but it is all had written, some if it is very difficult to read, and sometimes you spend a lot of time on a single image sheet.

I would love to jump into the Paris election cards project, but my french is rusty and the instructions are in French. If a translation was available, I would take a crack at it.

Think about how to best motivate your volunteers.

Tom,

Here is the link for the Paris Electoral Cards Wiki in English, I’m working on them right now. Hope this helps.

http://www.ancestry.com/wiki/index.php?title=World_Archives_Project:_Paris,_Vicinity_and_other_French_Cities,_Electoral_Cards,_1900-1932

I’m going to try to get back at those Texas Convict Records…I tend to get distracted reading them though!

Terry,
Thank you for the suggestion. We are working on a new Challenge that will start in July.

Tom,
If you are also seeing the Field Helps in French you will need to adjust your settings. File>Options>Field Name/helps language. You want to make sure this is set for English.

And yes, you are right, some of the difficulty levels need to be adjusted. We have changed a few just today and there will be a few other changes coming.

Rebecca,
I am right with you. There are a few projects that I get distracted on – that is part of the fun. 🙂

Was the Krakau project completed? I thought there were quite a few more to enter and I see that it has disappeared from the project list.

When I first started keying for WAP, I chose “Pick a Project for Me” and got the Canadian Volunteer Army pay records, which was later (apparently for lack of interest) scrapped. One thing I have noticed. The projects give an incredibly varied record count. For instance, the New Zealand city directories can produce upwards of 4 to 500 records in one image, while the French election registration cards are 1 record per image (5 or 10 images per set). For those who are after a high records-keyed count, it is obvious the choice would be the New Zealand City Directories. After having keyed and arbitrated the 1940 Census for Family Search, I have seen many apparent motives for keying certain projects. Personally, I am trying to keep my record count above the 900 required to be a “Participating Member”. However, since I work full time and have additional familial responsibilities, I sometimes find it hard to maintain that level of participation.
Also, responding to Tom, post #4… Yest, the Kansas project is a bit difficult to read, as the images are not the best quality. However, adjusting the image view controls can help a lot. (increase the contrast, sometimes even inverting the image to white on black.) As to the Paris election cards, I key that quite a bit. it goes fast. You don’t have to read/speak french to key it. There is an option on the instruction page for English instructions.

I am now slogging thru the Ottawa papers, which usually has 50-60 entries per page. I find that I make at least one correction per line, sometimes more. It’s hard to ask to review more, review quicker, when you basically have to rekey every page. I think there is too much emphasis on keying more and keying faster, and sacrificing quality.

Lynette,
I believe the Canadian project you are referring to is the Canada, Nominal Rolls and Paylists for the Volunteer Militia, 1857-1922, it is live on Ancestry! You can search it here, http://search.ancestry.ca/iexec/?htx=List&dbid=1935.

Janet,
I am curious what errors you are encountering with the project. Have you posted them on the Discussion page? http://www.ancestry.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:World_Archives_Project:_Ottawa,_Ontario,_Canada,_The_Ottawa_Journal,_1885-1980
We are able to adjust instructions if need be.
Our intent is to draw your attention to some of the projects that are not getting as much attention.

When indexing the Federal Census on familysearch.org, we were given one whole image and about 40 names to index and we were done.

The Kansas Census is a hassle! You give us about 10 images to index at a time and over 100 names, that really needs to be cut down. That is why I stopped doing this, it takes up too much time.

I’ve been working on the Kansas records, but allowed myself to get distracted by the Pennsylvania genealogical society as a much needed break. I promise I’ll be back on Kansas soon! (^.^)

Anna, if the errors that Janet has been finding on the Ottawa Journal project are the same ones that I have seen, they mostly appear to be caused by keyers not reading the instructions at all rather than the instructions being confusing. For instance, not keying prefixes, inferring locations which are not stated on the image, or not keying the location as seen, and not following the instructions about how to key parents’ names along the lines of Mr and Mrs John Knightly.

Charlie, I agree that some of the Kansas Census image sets take a long time to work through, but many of them have mostly “cover pages” and only one or two pages of names which is why they have done them as sets of 10 images. If we only had 1 image per set it would be pretty annoying having to keep opening a set, choosing “cover page” and sending it straight off.

Thank you for providing these periodic updates. It is motivating to see progress on high priority projects and those that have lagged.

Anyone tell me how to handle the Ga Felony Convicts image. T first image had a guy with and alias. I keyed in as it showed. The second image was an extension of data columns for the same
people. It requires the names to be keyed in again. But the second image
has this guy with his alias reversed so I really don’t know which one is correct. So I have keyed it in as it shows. Not sure of any other way to do it. The second person also had an alias but it was the same on both images.