Family Search Indexing

Today's submission is from Sister Amy Young (Oldham YW Presidency)

The coolest and most effective way of contributing to genealogical efforts!!!!

I'm a busy mum of 5 young children and therefore researching out my own family history is very time consuming with great effort and commitment of my time being required amongst all other things....time which at the end of a busy day of being a mum and fulfilling my calling in Young Women can often be scarce.....................that is until I was introduced to the Indexing programme!!

My good family friend and fellow Young Women leader introduced me to the world of 'INdexing' just a couple of months back when as a presidency we decided to introduce it together with our Young Women in Oldham ward. It truly was a mutual night of learning???....intrigue???...fascination???.....frustration???...too late I was hooked!!!

It was the perfect way to help contribute to family research.......I was unsure about it all at first but that feeling soon passes once I became used to the programme and how it worked.......spending more and more time completing work I soon became interested in the names I had submitted where they where from...how many siblings they had etc etc...the information I was inputting was becoming more and more real to me...these pepole aren't just names but people who actually existed and belonged to someone out there!!!!!!

That night seeing the Young Women eagerly becoming a part of this great work truly was a marvelous sight to behold.....seeing the girls set themselves goals and encourage each other and dedicate themselves only strengthened my own drive to continue and do more.

To personalise this effort I can look at the following facts.Hundreds of thousands of people each month search the records I've helped "unlock" through this ongoing effort. My efforts help make hundreds of millions of names from some of the world's most valuable records collections available online for open access.My Indexed Records are Being Used today.....and so it is our duty to fullfill these efforts. I made a difference and so YOU can Make a Difference!!!

The family search indexing programme needs your help. Working together, our collective efforts allow people around the world to find and document the lives of their ancestors........Every person matters. Perhaps it’s this feeling that prompts millions to seek out their family history.

For most of us, records of our ancestors provide a link to our past. I am now part of an army of volunteers The Young Women of Oldham Ward are now part of that same army from around the world working to make these records available to everyone.

I do not consider myself highly intelligent at all and I'm barely computer literate but Indexing is so easy...even I can do it!!! I t may appear a little hard or confusing at times but the great thing is any mistakes we make can and will be corrected by other volunteers that check our work. So it's a sure winner....you can do as many trial runs beforehand just to give you a little practise. Family search.org has everything on there and they keep in regular contact by email to encorage you with your efforts and thank you for all of your efforts made........you even have a goal setter and a point scorer that tracks all the work you submit and complete...this enables yourself to keep track and for the church to review and record all that is being completed. The Oldham ward Young women have even been challenged to make it part of their Personal Progress Projects....10 hours of indexing is very easily achieved.

You can help. No special skills are required. Volunteer when you have time. Make that time!!!! Just register ( make sure you have your church membership number), sign in, and follow the easy steps that are clearly displayed through www.familysearch.org and away you go....it is that simple!!!!!!!!.............it is my hope that everyone catched the little 'indexing' bug that I caught...................enjoy and away you go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Amy !!!