World Archives Project

[Shona]

I'm considering doing some transcribing for Ancestry's World Archives Project. I've downloaded the software and eager to get going. Anyone got any hints and tips, please?

[kiterunner]

Great to hear that you're going to have a go, Shona!

Make sure to read the project instructions and the general keying standards. Also read the "discussion" tab on the project instructions wiki page as there are often Q's and A's on there, plus the WAP message boards. And feel free to ask questions in either or both of those places.

Don't worry if your accuracy rating says something like "Good job" to begin with, because there is a long-standing glitch in the system where it will say that instead of "Unknown" when nothing that you have keyed has been reviewed yet. There is also a glitch at the moment where you can't see statistics for each project and hopefully this is going to be fixed soon.

When keying, don't worry if you keep having to press F7 to accept entries that aren't in the dropdown menu. This is quite common.

Every so often, they announce a series of "keying challenges" where the top keyer and reviewer for each challenge wins their choice out of a 3-month world ancestry sub, FTM, or a DNA testing kit. These are definitely worth watching out for.

There are only a few projects for keying at the moment, fewer than usual. Hopefully there are some more in the pipeline.

[Kit]

I did a little bit for ancestry ages ago, as they had a set of records I really wanted released. I had to stop as I didn't have time but it was fairly easy and the checkers were better and more accurate than I had been getting on familysearch at that time. I tend to get a bit cross when I'm told I'm wrong and I know I'm not.

[Shona]

Thanks for the hints and tips. Getting all my vitamin injections on Wednesday, so I will be full of energy and raring to go.

[kiterunner]

Another tip is not to pay too much attention to the "tips" that pop up when you load the keying tool, as some of them are very out-of-date. I don't mean the Project Information that pops up when you open an image set, or the Field Helps, which are vital, just the general tips that appear when you load it. (For instance, the one about always keying gender in full.)

[JBee]

I thank you and everyone who transcribes material.

I have terrible trouble reading originals so am very grateful for those who do this work which enables us to find information on people we'd probably never see otherwise.

[Kit]

Some are very easy and others quite difficult. familysearch actually have 3 levels of difficulty.

I haven't done much for a while but I would look at a record set of interest and decide if I could read enough to do it properly. I left the hard stuff to those more experienced.