Indexing Challenge Sets Record

Participants in the International Indexing Challenge established a new record for the most indexing participants online in a single day. A total of 66,511 volunteers went on the Internet on July 22, 2014, to view images of historical records and transcribe the information for inclusion in the searchable database on FamilySearch.org. The previous one-day record of 49,025 volunteers was set in July 2012 at the height of the 1940 U.S. Census indexing effort.

The challenge also produced the second-highest combined (indexed or arbitrated) total of submitted records, reaching just over 5.7 million. (Each record is indexed by two volunteers and then reviewed by a third volunteer, known as an arbitrator, to ensure quality and accuracy.)

“Our members, young and old, have participated with a happy heart,” said Bishop Crouet in Toulouse, France. “What a beautiful experience.”

Christopher Jones of Wales said, “We arranged our family home evening so that we could all index—two parents and seven children aged 18 to 5. All told, as a family we indexed just over 900 records!”

Natalie Terry of Bangkok, Thailand, said she loved participating in the worldwide indexing day with her 13-year-old daughter. And Chris Shead of Chorley, England, said he was able to find about 30 new family names, including “a little girl who died soon after her baptism and had fallen through the gaps between the census records.”