Do You Miss Directories?


Over 4100 of you worked on our various city directory projects.  We know you loved them because they were typed, easy to read, and (let’s be honest) provided you with REALLY HIGH record counts.  And we thank you for your contribution in getting these five projects completed so quickly.

In our World Record Challenge quest to key 8 million records this summer you have already keyed an impressive 5.8 million records.  But, did you know that 2.5 million of those were from directories projects? And, with only a few weeks left in our challenge, and no other directory projects on the immediate horizon…

Well, let’s just say we might have to get creative to hit our goal!

While very few project will have the high name density of city directories, London School Admissions and Discharges have about 50 records per image.  They are hand written but are cleanly fielded and fairly easy to key.  They are only about 60% complete, with plenty of image sets left.  And, according to our records, only about 2000 of you have tried them.

So, we want to offer the first marathon “aid station” as we push through the last few weeks of our challenge.  The person who keys and/or arbitrates the most number of records from this collection on Friday, August 6th (USA, Mountain Time) will receive a free World Archives Gift Package.

While you are waiting for another super high-density record collection, why not give London Schools a try?

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August 5th, 2010
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Reader Comments

Comment Number:
1
Written by:
paulmd199
Posted on:
August 5, 2010 at 7:24 pm

Other high density record collections

census records
Ca RR
Buffalo soldiers
Military records
Varmland (Hint hint 😉 )

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
jmstott
Posted on:
August 5, 2010 at 8:06 pm

The consular reports of Marriage are really easy and fast, even though there is only 1 report per image and many images aren’t revelant

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
jmstott
Posted on:
August 5, 2010 at 8:12 pm

Not to mention, very interesting, at least to me. Some of the back pages even have pictures!

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Judy Little
Posted on:
August 5, 2010 at 10:37 pm

What about the person that has to work? They won’t beable to do this? What is the time frame?

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Elisabeth
Posted on:
August 6, 2010 at 1:31 am

Why is there so much emphasis on quantity? Why not promoting and honouring quality.

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
paulmd199
Posted on:
August 6, 2010 at 2:22 am

Elizabeth:
The city directories were also really really good for your accuracy rate.

And as always, care should be taken!

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
joan ashton
Posted on:
August 6, 2010 at 5:48 am

If you are new to typing the school records, make sure you read and follow all the instructions to make life easier for the arbitrators and ensure you keep up your accuracy rate.

Comment Number:
8
Written by:
Jeni Mason
Posted on:
August 6, 2010 at 5:58 am

I’ve been doing these records for some time and enjoyed most of them (except the few that look like spiders have attacked the page). However as soon as you announce it as the “prize” collection – I’m finding that instead of a page with around 50 records, all the ones I’m downloading are single entries on a page!

Comment Number:
9
Written by:
Judy Little
Posted on:
August 6, 2010 at 7:41 am

I noticed that also. Have you tried the form2 ones?

Comment Number:
10
Written by:
Jeni Mason
Posted on:
August 6, 2010 at 10:55 am

No, I haven’t tried the Form 2 ones but we seem to back to the usual pages now – I found out when I downloaded several sets. Guess I’ll just have to keep keying longer!

Comment Number:
11
Written by:
Chris Doran
Posted on:
August 6, 2010 at 6:45 pm

British Postal has 160 records per set if all the pages are full. The writing is getting clearer now. But the place names can be obscure so it really helps to be familiar with British town names and subdistricts.(Hint: Google can often offer suggestions if you just type what you see.) Also, make sure you understand the instructions on keying abbreviations which often replace place names.

Comment Number:
12
Written by:
mafstep
Posted on:
August 7, 2010 at 1:26 pm

Yes, I definitely miss the city directories. I hope you plant to have more available for keying soon. They will provide excellent research opportunities once they are available for searching on Ancestry.

Comment Number:
13
Written by:
paulmd199
Posted on:
August 24, 2010 at 1:23 pm

You know, there is no shortage of directories in Ancestry’s collection with a lousy OCR index.

We can do better than OCR.