And I Don't Even Speak Italian

You may remember last year when I was so excited about indexing the 1940 US Census records. It was a great project that kept me busy whenever I had a little down time last summer. Unfortunately, the project was started and finished all within about six months. It ended right about the time school began and I was pretty busy with other things for a few months. Occasionally, when I thought about it, I tried other indexing projects. I spent some time on Draft Cards or WWI Pension Cards or various other projects, but nothing caught my interest like the census so I really wasn't indexing much at all. 

That all changed earlier this summer. My friend, who happens to be our Indexing director, asked me if I'd consider working on a large project to index Italian birth records, 1875 and on. She promised me that, with a little training and practice, I would be able to learn all I needed to become proficient at finding and transcribing the necessary information.

In truth, my first batch of 15 names took me between 2-3 hours! It was grueling as I struggled to locate the needed information, find the Italian months and dates on my cheat sheet and read the old script to figure out each name. Fortunately I didn't give up. I've been working on these Italian records for about 3 months and now I can usually finish a batch in 15 to 20 minutes. Once again, indexing is something I look forward to every day. 

It's exciting to be part of a project that is making this information easily available to those who are searching for their ancestors. The Italian project is best suited for those who are already familiar with indexing, but there are roughly 200 indexing projects available in a variety of languages and certainly something for everyone who has an interest in helping. 

For more information: https://familysearch.org/volunteer/indexing

It can be addicting. Consider yourself warned! :)