Behind the Scenes in the Indexing World-- A Message From the Stake High Priests Group

Behind the Scenes in the Indexing World

Last year, our ward embarked on a mammoth signup campaign to introduce our ward members to the fun of indexing. That project brought the Spirit of Elijah into many homes, and continues to do so. Please don't stop. It is a fun way to spend 20 min. or  half hour building the kingdom and readying our world for the return of the Savior. Right now, there is an interesting project ongoing where you enter information taken from Georgia death certificates from the 20th Century [Some of us old-timers remember that century with affection.]

At any rate, the following information from Family Search might be of interest to you:

Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes of indexing and image capturing? There are more than 1. 5 million images are captured each week. Who makes this possible? Records preservation missionaries, contractors, FamilySearch employees, archive employees, and many volunteers are responsible for capturing millions of images each year. These historical records are captured so that they may be indexed, preserved, and published on FamilySearch.org.

There are about 222 cameras located all over the world; 92 cameras in the Western Hemisphere, and 130 in the Eastern Hemisphere. These industrial cameras can each take millions of images ranging from 16 to 50 megapixels. Computer software is used to calibrate the camera, capture the image, manage the project, and capture metadata or information about the records. Clamps and foam wedges are used to keep the book level and the image in focus. All images are saved on an external hard drive at the end of each week, placed in a protective case, and sent to Salt Lake City, Utah. Once the hard drive arrives in Salt Lake, it is sent through an auditing process where rejected images are sent back for rework and approved images are processed and published.

That information is then sent to YOU to index. Once you and another indexer completes a batch, it is "arbitrated" for quality control and is placed into the largest data base of genealogy in the world. YOU can play a role in making that information available to the world so that those who do family history work can be Saviors on Mt. Zion. What is more? The work is flat out fun!!!

Mark Petersen - HB 4th Ward High Priests Group