FamilySearch are indexing the National Probate Calendar

[kiterunner]

At last! A searchable index is being created which includes the names of executors and administrators, not just the name of the deceased person. I have been wanting someone to do this for a long time. Of course, it may be quite a while yet before the index is made available, but it's good to know it's on its way. I'm having a go at doing some of the indexing at the moment.

[Mary from Italy]

That's excellent. I'll go and do some indexing too; I generally do quite a bit for FS, but I haven't done any for a couple of months due to other commitments.

[Mary from Italy]

What a shame - the program isn't showing any UK projects at all at the moment.

[kiterunner]

Have you got it set to "Arbitrator" instead of "Indexer", Mary? I can only see the UK projects if I choose "Indexer" at the moment; presumably there are no UK batches waiting to be arbitrated right now.

[Mary from Italy]

No, I've never done any arbitrating, and it doesn't seem to give me the option to choose between the two.

I do some Italian projects, and I can download them for indexing with no problem. It's also showing US projects.

[ElizabethHerts]

That is great news. More and more probate information is gradually being made available online. It is heartening to find many more probate transcriptions and details coming online.

[kiterunner]

Mary, when you click "Download Batch", you get a list of projects to choose from and there are boxes to tick for "Show all projects" or "Show preferred projects". Have you got it set to show preferred projects only? It could be that your preferences don't include UK projects?

[Mary from Italy]

No, it's set to show all projects, and my preferences are set to English-language projects anyway.

[Mary from Italy]

It's really strange, because it used to show UK projects. Now I come to think of it, it's been ages since it's shown any UK projects; I thought it was odd that there weren't any. I'll perhaps try e-mailing Support to see what they say.

[Mary from Italy]

Just had a reply from FS Support, which I'm really cross about.

Thank you for contacting FamilySearch regarding indexing projects from the United Kingdom. Those projects are usually restricted to those individuals living in the UK. Similarly, projects containing records from Australia and New Zealand are usually restricted to indexers in those geographic areas.

We hope you will be interested in trying other projects which are available for indexing. Except for the two areas mentioned above, most of our many projects can be indexed by people throughout the world.

I can access US records, but I have no interest in indexing them because my entire tree is in England and Australia, and I'm now prevented from working on projects in those countries.

I've replied, suggesting that they reconsider this silly new rule (which they must have introduced quite recently, because I could access UK and Aus projects until 2/3 months ago).

It seems a pity that they're liable to lose a lot of experienced expat indexers like me.

[kiterunner]

That's ridiculous. I hadn't noticed that I didn't have access to Australian and NZ projects any more but now I see they are missing. I have worked on projects from those countries before. I hope they change it back.

[Mary from Italy]

They wrote back to say you can apply to join "closed" projects (although you'd have to apply for each project individually).

They sent me a link about how to do it, but of course the procedure doesn't work.

If they don't change the system back to how it was, I'll just stop indexing for them (I work on Italian projects too) and apply to FreeReg.

[ElizabethHerts]

Mary, it seems that Family Search have shot themselves in the foot there!

I like transcribing for the OPC projects. I have done a lot of wills for Cornwall OPC and am doing registers too. It's very satisfying to see the database expand.

[Mary from Italy]

Mary, it seems that Family Search have shot themselves in the foot there!

It really does. I've been transcribing for about 3 years, and completed over 20,000 records in that time, with a consistent accuracy rating of 97-98%, so if many other people like me stop working on UK projects, they're really going to be losing out.

That being said, an Australian project has mysteriously appeared in my program today. Still no UK ones, though.

[Kit]

Interesting as when I last indexed for them, admittedly ages ago, there was a time when there weren't any Aussie ones for me to do. I like to do ones that I have an interest in, makes it far more likely I'll keep coming back.

I stopped as an arbitrator marked my last batch almost all incorrect. They were wrong and it took me longer to submit that they were wrong than it had to index in the first place.

[Kit]

Just logged on to the indexing program. Not one English or Australian record to index. :(