Trove Tuesday - Doing my bit as a VolunTrove

As I believe in "paying it forward" I have been a VolunTrove since 2009. Around February this year the Trove  team coined this phrase for those volunteers in the Trove community who undertake what they call #TroveHomework ie participating in activities that add value to our amazing national resource, Trove . As well as those who correct text in the newspaper zone of Trove  VolunTroves  can make virtual collections by tagging items and creating lists on various topics.

Although I have been correcting text for over ten years I have not made the enormous contribution of those Hall o' fame  text correctors who have each corrected millions of lines of text. My contribution is but a drop in the ocean...but the ocean is made up of many drops!

I am classed as an "elderly at risk person" for the current Covid-19 Pandemic so I am practising Social Isolation  by self isolating at home.  This means that I have a lot of time on my hands. Of course, as I am a genealogy tragic, I will always have something to amuse myself.

Earlier this month I opened my Trove User Profile to check on my text correction status. 

My text correction tally is not too impressive. I have managed between 0 and  552 corrected lines per month since 2009 until February 2020. Nothing to gloat about!

I have made a commitment to be a good VolunTrove during my isolation and commit to correcting more lines per month. To date March 2020 has been my best month yet; as of this morning I have corrected 753 lines of text in March. That places me at position 2930 in the Hall o' fame table. I aim to improve on that.

I am concentrating on correcting articles relating to persons in my family tree. However, when I am in a Family Notices section, I correct some of the entries neighbouring those of my ancestors. I am also tagging entries with ancestors' names and creating lists for descendants of my first ancestors to arrive in Australia eg Descendants of Elizabeth Phipps. 

Please consider joining me as an active VolunTrove during your period of isolation. 

Going Local

When I woke on Saturday morning little did I know how my day would unfold.

While I was enjoying my morning coffee I had a phone call from members of my local Family History Group at Lake Macquarie who had gathered early for the monthly and annual general meetings. The purpose of that call was to ask me if I would accept a nomination as the President of the Group. I was both flattered and flabbergasted as consideration of this role was not on my radar. After a short discussion I said that I would give it some thought and talk about it further when I got to the venue for the meeting.

I had reservations because I am a relatively new member of the Group and have only been a resident of Lake Macquarie for two years. I also have the travel bug and was concerned that my absences would adversely impact on the role of President. On the positive side I have a commitment to grassroots genealogy and I have observed that The Lake Macquarie Family History Group runs like a well-oiled machine. I am keen to become an active member of the local community. This offer was difficult to refuse.

When I arrived at the venue I chatted with most of the current Committee members who offered me their support and encouraged me to stand. I signed the nomination form and was duly elected. 

I was honoured and humbled to be invited to lead the Group and I will endeavour to conscientiously fulfil the role entrusted upon me. I am fortunate to inherit a dedicated, experienced and knowledgeable group of committee members and volunteers who run the group so efficiently.

I am hoping that some of my genimates will make the trip to Lake Macquarie to meet the members of the group up here.

An Inviting Email

My current state could be described as "bubbling over with enthusiasm". 

A few nights ago I received an email inviting me to take on another volunteering opportunity. It is the sort of volunteering role for which one doesn't volunteer but to which one is invited. I was tickled pink to be asked to take on this role through which I can contribute to genealogical education in Australia.

After an appropriate cooling off period of 12 hours I enthusiastically accepted the role which will see me working with an experienced team of genies.

I'm not sure when I can tell you what I'm doing but I can tell that this old girl is looking forward to her new 'job'.

Worldwide Indexing Event

Congratulations to all of the indexers who collaborated to create a record in the Familysearch Worldwide Indexing Event. The final numbers for the activity will be available in the coming days but Familysearch reported just now on Facebook that an estimate of 66,417 indexers took part in the event.

Familysearch Indexing Facebook post

Initially indexers had some issues connecting to the Familysearch servers as they were overloaded but as the hours passed it became easier to download batches for indexing and upload completed batches for arbritation. It was lucky that I had prepared by downloading a couple of batches on the day before the activity so I was ready to begin indexing once the event kicked off.

For my small part I uploaded five batches (I think). As there were no Australian records available when I looked I indexed project records in English birth : records from the Phillipines, marriage records from Virginia in the US and US army draft cards from Arkansas. Some of the records were typed and some were handwritten. Although these records were in the Beginner category I found that some of the handwriting and foreign names created challenges for me.

I am a beginner indexer who finds that this activity fits in with my lifestyle. It enables me to give back to Familysearch who do so much for the genealogy community, I am able to volunteer in my own time fitting in the activity around the needs of my family.As I transcribe records from other countries I am learning about names, places and records from those lands so indexing alaso is a learning activity for me.

If you haven't tried indexing for Familysearch give it a go. You will find it a rewarding experience.

Familysearch Indexing Page: https://familysearch.org/indexing/

A Volunteer learns a few lessons

I spent a pleasant few hours at my historical society last week learning how to use their photo database software. As I did so I handled some amazing images of people and places from the local area.

What struck me was the huge number of images that the society holds and that are searchable through this database. I think that presently the society has around 10,000 images digitised and catalogued in this collection that is only available in the society rooms.

This set me to thinking what I might be able to find if I visited local historical societies in the areas where my ancestors lived. I tend to visit genealogy societies when I am on the road but I should include historical societies.

So what did I learn at my society last week?

* That the society has an impressive photo collection
* Skills with a new software application
* That there are photo collections not available on the web via Flickr
* That I should remember to visit historical societies when I undertake a genealogy jaunt.

Have you checked out the photo collections in relevant historical societies?

Volunteering

I just read this wonderful post on volunteering. Although the target audience is educators it applies equally to genealogists.
Get Involved – The Art of Volunteering