3-2-1 Cite! Challenge for July - FamilySearch Indexing

DearMYRTLE is challenging readers to participate in her monthly 3-2-1 Cite! Project.  This month the challenge is described in 3-2-1 CITE! - FamilySearch Indexing Challenge.  The challenge is to:

"Using the resources at FamilySearch Indexing, participants are to:

3 - review 3 possible projects
2- submit 2 batches
1 - write 1 paragraph about your impressions
CITE! All sources, including your 'personal knowledge" as the source for the paragraph you write."

Okay, 'm game, and since I did some indexing (albeit poorly!) during the 24-hour challenge, I decided that the only way to improve at it is to do more.  So here are my responses to the challenge.

The three projects I chose were:

*  Texas Obituaries, 1980-2014 (Part B)
*  Arkansas, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1940-1945 (Part B)
*  U.S., Illinois, Chicago - Catholic Church Records, 1833-1910 (Part A)

The latter was already partially completed, and in Latin, so I returned it.

Here are some notes about the two batches I completed and submitted:

1.  Texas Obituaries, 1980-2014 -- these were from 2012, and typed, but sometimes the type was unclear.  There were only five obituaries in the batch, but usually there were ten to twelve other names in the obituary.

2.  Arkansas World War II Draft Registration Cards -- this was a strange batch, because the directions said:

 "For the Given Names and Surnames, Index the information in the boxes labeled Person Who will always Know Your address.  The principal names were previously indexed in a separate project.  After the additional fields are indexed they will be added to the published index."

Okay...but there are inex fields for the Place of Birth (Town, County, State), the Person Who Will always Know Your Location, and their location (Town, County, State).  I decided to fill in all of the index fields, reasoning that "they wouldn't have put the fields in the indexing project unless they wanted them indexed."

There were 25 draft registration cards in this batch, with 8 fields to fill in.  I completed and submitted this batch:

My impressions?  I like that the batch of Texas obituaries had more persons in the obituary - the ones I did previously usually had only the deceased person's name and death date.  That was easy, this was more difficult.  I was unsure if I should assume a married surname for the spouse of someone named in the obituary (e.g., "sister Susan Weems and husband Gary").  I did it anyway, rather than obsess over it.  The Arkansas draft registration cards had several formats, with the birth place information in different locations, and often without a County name provided.  Should I look up the town on Google and add the County to the field?  I did for some of them.  So I'll only be half wrong.

A source citation for this experience?  For the blog post?  Or for the batches reviewed?  I'll do the blog post:

Randall J. Seaver, “3-2-1 Cite! Challenge for July - FamilySearch Indexing,” blog post, Genea-Musings, http://www.geneamusings.com, personal experience in FamilySearch indexing, 29 July 2014..

If that's not good enough, i'm sure someone with more knowledge will tell me!  Hopefully, they will be more definitive in the requirements.

I haven't seen many entries for this challenge - I hope that my genea-blogging colleagues will participate and share their experiences and opinions.  There are two days left in July!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/07/3-2-1-cite-challenge-for-july.html

Copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver