Tamberino ha scritto:

mille= thousand cento=hundred so 1935 would be unomillenovecentotrentacinque

In Italian we say Millenovecentotrentacinque, since Mille=One thousand.

Eleven,

you said that 2 people key in the same record and that record is then looked over by an arbitrator. Is it possible for one of the keyers to see the others submitted document? Also how do you know which document went through arbitration?

Two keyers key the same document. They then go to an arbitrator. There are no names involved. Nobody sees anyone elses name. We just get two sets of fields. One is keyer As and one is keyer Bs. If the two people didnt agree, on say, a name. That is highlighted in red, to us. We look at the two spellings and at the document on top and decide which we think is correct. If we think neither is correct, we can type in what we think it should be.

There is really no way to know which of your workings went to the arbitrator. Sometimes, on their forum, people will ask how the arbitrating is going, and people will post what there is, in each project to arbitrate, like 10 sets for NY nats are sitting to be arbitrated, 2000 sets for something else, etc. When I began to arbitrate, there were 33,000 NYC nat cards, waiting to be arbitrated. There are more keyers, than arbitrators.

One of the fastest moving arbitrations are for the NY nats.(NOT NYC..NY nats) Those are right up with them being keyed. If you typed them now, they are arbitrated within an hour..sometimes less. Thats because they are the easiest to key and to arbitrate.

If you worked on some of the other things, the arbitrators might be behind, thousands. In that case, what you work on today, wont be arbitrated for a month or months, even.

Once your things start getting arbitrated, you will see an accuracy score. That goes up and down, depending on how your work was arbitrated...or how many times the arbitrater chose the other person over you, or you over them. If you leave blank fields, that counts against you, as they will chose the other person as being correct, because they typed something.

There is absolutely no way to know where your errors lie...unless you read their forums. The arbitrators will give a general idea of what people seem to be messing up on. Many people wont spell out the month, or leave blank fields, things like that.

Their forum is here

community.Ancestry.com...board.aspx

I find it very helpful.

Oh..if you are interested in arbitrating, you need an accuracy of 95%. You are then auto selected (we think) to arbitrate. If this becomes your goal, I suggest you key the NY nats..they are just a typewritten name. Not only do they go fast, but the are arbitrated quickly.

I had no idea that Ancestry used volunteers to transcribe these records. Very informative post.

Yes, I believe this is new for them. I think they started this in the fall. You can volunteer to help the FHL, too. I have been with them since august. Their program started a long time ago...not sure how long, but longer than ancestry.

You can volunteer here for them

www.familysearchindexi...g/home.jsf

They have trento baptisms, but the current ones seem to be very old (early 1700s), in latin and hard to decipher.

I think I would have a problem doing volunteer work for Ancestry given that they are a profit making business and their records are only accessible to those who pay a very large fee. LDS is more acceptable since their records and facilities are available to everyone and their microfilm fee is very affordable, only to cover the cost for postage.
These Italian records are very difficult to transcribe even when you are familiar with the town. It's a bit daunting to see someone transcribing who can't read a date in Italian. Thanks for the info it's all very interesting.

I used to feel the same way and is why I began volunteering for the FHL, first.

Then the more I thought about it, the more I didnt care who got our italian records out there..as long as they got there.

I began genealogy 16 years ago, before the internet. I had to pay for every document I mailed away for, be it in this country, or italy.

I spent a lot of money ordering FHL film, not to mention the gas used for the half hour, each way, trip...twice a week.

I had to go out in all kinds of weather to make that trip, my research was done at a snails pace. I had a limited time to search and had to do this when they had their hours, which was usually no more that 2 1/2 hours at a time. By the time you got your film, got a machine and got situated, you already wasted 20 minutes of it.

When ancestry began to get their census records online, I joined twice, for a limited time period. What a pleasure it was to search from my own home, whenever I wanted, for as long as I wanted, and didnt even have to dress up. I found things I would have never found, on the outside, because I could search page by page and take all of the time I needed.

As far as the Italian records, they will be no worse than those in english. Have you ever used some of these indexes? Why do you think we see so many people saying they cant find their ancestor on the ellis island site, or a census record, or any other record. This is because it is not easy reading someone elses handwriting from these time periods. Not only that, people who took the information, made spelling mistakes, since most immigrants couldnt spell the names for them. No index is perfect, be it in italian or english and it doesnt matter who is keying the records. Errors happen for various reasons, and a seasoned genealogist knows to search using misspellings.

The ancestry italian records go past 3 people before they are completed. Their index wont turn out any better or worse than anyone elses.

I think its very important for our records to get out there, no matter who puts them there. I know if they had my towns, I would pay ANY price to have access to them from my home.

i am so glad that this whole project was brought up. In the last two day I have entered over 500 in the N. California Naturalization. Why, because the document that I NEED is there. We are in the ATA.. part now, but I am hoping to get to the CAL here real soon. Also, the Italian documents will have my grandmother info I am looking for. This is like getting a sneak peak and I am excited.
I agree, the more folks doing this the merrier. I gave up on entering Italian docs, i will leave that to the people who can at least read italian.

Thanks

Catherine

Everyone has their own reasons for volunteering.

Right now, neither place that I work for has anything that I need...but, I am hoping, that someday, they might.

I also enjoy doing this. I used to waste a lot of time on the net, playing games, or just browsing. Now, I feel like I am accomplishing something. I am doing something that will help people for generations after me.

Sigel, it must be so exciting for you, to know that what we are all working on, will be of use to you. I know that I would be very excited.

Citazione:

I know if they had my towns, I would pay ANY price to have access to them from my home.

This is true....and given the fact that they are checked by three people makes me feel somewhat more confident....maybe after typewritten records I could give it a shot....and I had thought about renting film for the towns near my town of origin.....just to get something out there for the area.....
it would give me some experience to prepare for such a project.

I don't know why, unless it has something to do with the area being a former papal state, but there isn't nearly as much for Pesaro e Urbino as other areas.
Disappointing to say the least.

wldspirit

I see what you're saying, thanks for explaining. Since the transcribing takes an eternity I was wondering if there was some way the photographs of the records could be put in a database that could be searched by year and town. One could flip through them on the internet like a photo album slideshow. Has anyone done this sort of thing?

Heh..if only they would do that.

A member here and at another site that I use, did this exact thing with his town records. He got all of the records for his town, put them up on his website, divided them by category, marriages, etc..then by years, then just stuck them there and you can go thru them.

Do you realize how fast they could get this stuff out there, if they did it this way?

But, ya know..you cant teach old dogs, new tricks.

Genealogical records have always been indexed, so I suppose, even now, with computers and a faster way to get them up..they are still doing that indexing.

Nobody is more disappointed than myself, that these projects will take such a long time. And that is exactly why I keep saying..it is up to us. Those who know Italian, or a little italian or have used these kinds of records before.

I am not fluent, but have been using these kinds of records for 16 years. I know what I need to know to get the info off of them.

People that are not italian, wont choose these records to work on. Before I came here "begging" (sort of) it was me..and some other woman, and I dont even think she is italian and knows less of it than I do.

I feel, that if we dont make this effort, then after this, they wont bother putting any italian records out there. Why would they waste their time, if they see nobody will work on them?

Me again.

BTW, I just want to thank, everyone from this site, that DID go there. Prior to this thread, there were 4 sets sitting in arbitration mode for a week. I couldnt do them, and the other person couldnt, because we typed them. Each day, I would ask in their forums, how many sets show for the italian records, the answer was always 4. (I cant see my own, so I knew mine were in there).

The thing is..I knew I did hundreds of them. The other girl wasnt getting the same years as I was (why, I will never know..lol)..so my hundreds werent even added to arbitration, yet.

Well, today, there were 12 records waiting. I am guessing, some of yours, are matched up with mine, or the other girls.

Its slow going..but its an improvement..so thanks!! I am hoping, before long..this will speed up, just like the other (english) records.

Hi Eleven,

I'm an arbitrator since a few days.... I'm dedicating myself only to the italian project, I know some other italians folks are working on it...and really hope that all togheter we will do a good job!
Laura

Thats great pink!! I was going to mention, that you guys try to get to arbitrate.


(oh no...there goes my high score...lol) My work will finally get arbitrated.

I know I made some mistakes. I know just about where they are, since we get both the marriage and the publication. What looked like one letter in one, was much clearer in the other, so I knew I made a mistake a few times.