Monday Milestones – Happy New Year!
It is hard to believe that it is already 2010. Last year seemed to fly right on past me. However, for our team meeting today I was asked to prepare a review of what has been accomplished this past year in the Ancestry World Archives Project. So, I spent most of my morning reviewing statistics and numbers, message board postings and blog posts, tweets and Facebook comments all from this past year. I realized that even though it flew by, a great deal happened during that time.
The first thing that impressed me was how many of you joined our ranks in 2009 – over 23,000 people from all around the world. We’re so glad to have each and every one of you become a part of this great effort. For those of you who are new (and as a refresher course for some of you who may have been with us for a while) let me just reiterate some things about the program.
· Once they go live on the Ancestry.com sites, the INDEXES you are creating will be 100% free to everyone!
· The IMAGES for these databases require a subscription to view unless you are an active Ancestry World Archives Project contributor. If you are an active contributor you have free access to all images for all World Archives collections.
· Active contributors are those who key a minimum of 900 records every 90 days.
The second thing that impressed me as I reviewed all the data from the past year was the sheer volume of your contribution. (It reminded me that I need to step up my game to keep up with some of you!) Your grand totals for 2009?
· Records Keyed: 23,265,469
· Records Arbitrated: 4,896,998
Now, some of you may be so overwhelmed by those incredible numbers that you may have missed a subtle significance they contain. So, let me provide a quick refresher on another point as well.
Currently, every record is keyed by two different people. A computer then takes those two sets of data and compares them. Any discrepancies are then sent to a third, more experienced, keyer who decides which person keyed it correctly (or if neither did, how the correct entry should read). So, collectively you keyed over 23 million records. That represents double keying, which means there were over 11.6 million actual records produced. Of those, less than 4.9 million required arbitration. That means that over 6.7 million times what you keyed matched exactly what the other person keyed.
Phew! That was too much like a scary math story problem from high school. I promise not to throw too many of those your way in the coming year. I also promise to do my best to keep up with you in keying and to keep you informed here on the blog. My latest project of choice (addiction?) is the British Postal Appointments. If you haven’t checked those out, you really should. They are VERY fun!
Until next time – Happy Keying! (and Happy New Year!)
Christa do those numbers also reflect the records that were keyed by 2 people then rejected and had to be rekeyed by 2 more people? 4 people got credit for keying 1 record.