Monday Musings – Keying Standards
What are the Keying Standards? Why aren’t there more standards? Do the Keying Standards supersede the project instructions?
We have the keying standards so when you have a question that the project instructions do not answer you can go to the standards and hopefully have your questions answered. They also help with standard entries for the same field across many projects. Based on how data is normalized there are standards that help ensure the data is being keyed correctly – this is why you will notice instructions on how to key names, dates, locations, gender, ages, etc will be similar, if not the same, across projects.
Standards are added and updated as needed. Based on feedback or changes made at Ancestry we may choose to add or take away standards.
And no, the standards do not supersede the project specific instructions. Read the field helps first, review the sample images and then go to the keying standards. If you don’t find the answer there you can post a message on the Discussion page or message boards or send us a message.
In short the Keying Standards are a good resource and are helpful in understanding how many of the fields should be keyed.
Thank you for all you contribute and … Happy indexing!
Tuesday Thoughts
What are the reasons to vary from the keying standards?
Knowing why the year is sometimes 2 digits and sometimes 4 digits might help a keyer to understand the variation.
Same thing for state names, sometimes keyed in full, other times key as seen.
I always keep the field helps open and check that frequently because of these variations.
Love keying!