DAR Leadership Training Webinars DAR Genealogy Preservation Committee Supporting Documentation Project

Transcription

1 Slide 1 - Welcome to the s Supporting Documentation Project. This webinar is presented by Danna Koelling, National Chairman of the committee. If you need additional instruction after viewing this webinar, you may access further information on the committees page on the DAR members website. Slide 2 The was established in 2003 to index DAR genealogical and membership information into computerized, searchable databases. Our work assists in preserving these valuable records for posterity and significantly enhances the application approval and membership record retrieval processes. Slide 3 The DAR Genealogical Research System is the end result of the work accomplished during this committee's Descendants Project. That database is a valuable tool which is being used to assist in the completion of applications. Indexing of all available applications was completed July 30, Slide 4 Our current activity is the. We will categorize over 6 million documents used by members to support the lineage submitted on their DAR applications. Slide 5 A volunteer is assigned documents online. The document image appears on the lower portion of the screen. At the top are various category selections to choose from. The volunteer may see the image of a tombstone. The volunteer decides if the image is readable, unreadable, written in a foreign language, unknown, etc. She will then select the correct "primary" and "secondary" categories. In the example of an image of a tombstone she will select "cemetery" for the primary category and then cemetery record" for the secondary category, mark the include photo box and confirm the selected categories. If the record is a vital record she will enter the year of the event. Slide 6 This webinar consists of two parts. First we will go over how to access and use the Supporting Documentation program. The second half of the webinar will cover the types of documents you will see and how they should be categorized. Slide 7 - To access the Supporting Documentation program you must first send an to darprojects@dar.org. In the subject line of your say Volunteering for SD Project. In the body of the provide your name and national number. Please indicate if you ve ever had access to e-membership.

2 Slide 8 - If at any time you have been granted access to e-membership because of your chapter/state or national position the password you used then will still work once your access to the project has been activated. Activating your access to the project will in no way interfere with any e-membership access you may currently have. You will receive an letting you know that your access to the project has been set up. If you have never had an e-membership password once you receive the saying your access has been set up go to emembership.dar.org and click on the link to reset your password. Follow the on screen instructions. You will receive an either in your inbox or in your spam folder within a few minutes with instructions on how to set up your password. Once you have your e-membership password you may log into emembership.dar.org. You will not receive access to the entire e-membership website only to the Project portion of the website. Slide 9 - You will use your national number and your password to log into e-membership. Once you have logged into the website click on the word Projects in the navigation bar on the left side of the screen. Depending on the type of access you had previously this might be the third or fifth item down in the navigation bar. Slide 10 - The Projects Menu then appears. Click on the words Genealogy Preservation Committee. Slide 11 - Under Projects are two links. Supporting Documentation Index takes you directly to the project. The Document Types link takes you to a listing of all the document categories used in this project. Read through the list before you start the project to familiarize yourself with the types of documents you will be asked to identify. When you are finished for the day you must log out of the project. To do this you can click any one of the Logout links on the website. Do not simply click on the red X as this may cause issues when you wish to log back in. Slide 12 - Once you click on the Supporting Documentation Index link you will be automatically assigned a set of documents. You could have as few as one document in your set or more than 100. We do not know how many documents will be in any particular set. The set comprises all the documents associated with a member s application. You do not have to do all the documents in one session; however, we do ask that you try and complete a set you ve started within seven days. Slide 13 - The first time you click on the Supporting Documentation Index link a Non- Disclosure statement will appear. You need to read this document and then if you agree to the terms as outlined enter your birth date and type in your name or initials. Then click the I agree button. You only need to do this the first time you log into the system.

3 Slide 14 - For those of you who have worked on the Descendants Project the first thing you will notice is how clean and crisp the document images are. Take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the indexing screen. Across the top title bar starting at the left side it says Supporting Documentation Menu. Next it will tell you which document out of how many in your set you will be working on. Next to this are some very important numbers. They are the Set, Sequence and Phase Numbers. If you have a question about a document you must provide the Set AND Sequence numbers. Like the previous projects we are processing each document twice. On the far side of the dark grey title bar is a link that will take you back to the Main Menu for the project. Slide 15 - Under the gray title bar you will see the first data entry area. Below the data entry area is a copy of the image. At the top right of the image is the word page with two or more numbered buttons. This tool has been provided in case you need to look at the backside of a document. Normally you would not have to use this feature unless the first page is blank or looks like the back of a document. On this screen you will choose the Document Description. There are eight document descriptions you can choose from by clicking on the down arrow to the right of the text box. Slide 16 Pick the document description. Single Readable Document: will be used most often; Multiple Readable Document which will be used when more than one document is on a single page; Foreign Language will be used when the document is in any language other than English; Unreadable Document which will be used when the document is too blurry to read; Unknown Type of Document would be used when you can t decide on the category to use; Blank Document would be used if neither page of the document has anything on it; Backside of Document is used when the image is the backside of the previous document and finally Delete Document which would be used if the document is a DAR record copy, SAR record copy, C.A.R. record copy or pages from a GRC book. Slide 17 - You can choose items from the drop down box by either placing your mouse on the arrow on the right side of the box and then choosing the appropriate document description or typing the first letter of the document description using your keyboard. You can also tab to the Next button and click on the Enter key to go to the next screen. Slide 18 - In order to determine which document description best fits the image you will need to examine the image. The image is found on the lower two-thirds of your screen. If the image is sideways use the yellow directional arrows to reposition the image. This may take a few seconds as the image must reload. If the image looks to be blank place

4 your mouse cursor in the middle of the image, hold down the left mouse button and drag the four sided arrow up the image to see the rest of the image. If the image is indeed blank next check the second page of the image by clicking on the number 2 just above the image to be sure the image wasn t put through the scanner backwards. If both pages are blank then use the document description Blank Document. If you look at both images in the set and one is blank and the other is definitely the backside of a document mark it Backside of Document. If there is more than one image on the page, categorize the top or left most image. Once you ve chosen the document type click the next button. Slide 19 - Next you will be asked to choose a Primary Category. At this point you may need to enlarge the image to see it better. To enlarge the image, click on the magnifying glass with the plus sign in the middle of it. To reduce the image once you have enlarged it, simply click on the magnifying glass with the minus sign in the middle of it. Slide 20 - If the image is a title page or an image you can t easily categorize click on the folder icon to see all images in the assignment. By looking at the next image you may be able to determine the appropriate primary category to choose. To go back to the data entry screen click on the blue and white X in the upper right hand corner. Slide 21 - There are ten primary categories to choose from. Slide 22 - Cemetery has anything to do with cemeteries including photographs of tombstones. Census would include not only images of census pages but also abstracts from census records. Church is any document published or unpublished that was originally recorded in a church, except for a marriage record. Slide 23 - There are four primary Legal categories. Legal Court includes a list of documents that would be created by a judge. Legal Land is any document having to do with the disposition of land. Legal Probate is any document having to do with the probate of an estate including a will. Legal Other comprises documents that were created by legal entities other than a judge. To determine whether or not to choose legal court or legal other you would need to study the document types within each of those primary categories. Slide 24 - The published category is used for published material that would not fall into any of the other primary categories. Unpublished is used for any unpublished material that would not fall into any of the other primary categories. The vital records category is used for birth, marriage and death records.

5 Slide 25 - If the image is a photograph of any kind click on the radio button to the right of the word Includes Photo. In the case of this document which is a birth record the Primary Category would be Vital. The radio button would be left blank since it is not a photograph. Once the primary category has been chosen click the next button to choose the document type. Slide 26 - The document types available to choose from are birth, marriage and death. For all vital records you will be asked to type in the year of the event. Once you ve chosen the document type and if necessary entered the year the next button will take you to the confirmation screen. You will notice the title bar for the two selection screens primary category and document type is blue. Slide 27 - The confirmation screen title bar will be red. On this screen you will be asked to confirm which primary category, document type you selected and the year if entered. If you find you made an error in selection at any time during the process you may use the Back button to go to the previous screen or the start over button to take you to the document description screen for the current document. Be sure to take a moment to check that the categories are correct and the date has been entered as once you click the confirm button you may not return to the document. You may log out of the system any time you need to even in the middle of an assignment. Everything you ve confirmed will be saved. The next time you log in the program will open to your next document. Slide 28 - When you come to the end of your assignment you will be asked if you d like to continue or not. If you are unsure of when you will be able to work again please choose no. Slide 29 - Next let s look at the types of records you will be processing. Keep in mind although there are hundreds of different records we are going to be using very broad categories for this project. So don t over think the type of document you are looking at. We ll start with the most recognizable type of records, vital records. Vital Records are records produced at a local, state or government level or by a church. There are three categories birth, death and marriage. Birth could be as simple as a birth certificate but it could also be a delayed birth certificate or a certificate of birth issued by the Department of Commerce. Regardless of the entity that produced the certificate it is still to be categorized as Vital Birth Record. The same thought process would go into Vital Marriage Record, except a marriage record created by a church would go into this category as well. This could be a certificate of marriage, a marriage license, a marriage bond or even an internet listing of marriage records.

6 Slide 30 - Under the category Cemetery there is one sub category, Cemetery Record. This would include a published cemetery abstract book, Find-A-Grave listing, internet cemetery listing, document on cemetery letterhead, or copy of a burial card from cemetery files, a tombstone photograph or tombstone rubbing. So anything that has to do with a cemetery goes under Cemetery Record. Slide 31 - Index anything as a Census Record that either is an official census page, a census abstract card, a published census abstract from a book or an abstract done by the applicant. In other words anything that looks like it is or was taken from a census is a census record. Slide 32 - Church records can be published or unpublished. Church records may be lists of communicants or church members, records of church officers, church histories, baptismal records or burial records. The one exception is church marriage records, which need to be categorized as vital marriage record. Slide 33 - Legal Court may be the hardest category you work with as you will have to read the document carefully to determine what type of legal court record it is. This category includes Adoption Records, Divorce Records, Guardianship Records, Immigration Records, and then the all-encompassing category Court Record. If a record does not fall into any of the above listed categories, isn t a land record, probate record or fall into any of the specific categories listed under Legal Other then it is simply a Court Record. Examples of a court record might be a lawsuit, a court ordered judgment, affidavit, petition, power of attorney, court minutes, jury lists, etc. They can be published or unpublished records. Slide 34 - Legal Land may be published or an unpublished record having to do with land. A few examples of land records include deeds, land grants, bounty land applications, and mortgages. Slide 35 - The sub-categories under Legal Other are very specific so it will be easy to identify documents that fall into these categories. The only one that would contain a broad number of different types of documents is Military Record. This includes service records, draft cards, pension records, militia lists, discharge papers, etc. Social Security applications as well as Social Security Death Index information is to be categorized as a social security record. Slide 36 - A will is the easiest in the Legal Probate group to distinguish. A will may be either published or unpublished, and includes an abstract. Everything else falls under probate record. This could be letters of administration, notice of estate sale, estate settlement, estate inventory. In other words, any document relating to the estate other than a will.

7 Slide 37 - Published includes items published in books or in newspapers not already mentioned in any of the previous categories. Slide 38 - Unpublished records are those records that have not been printed in books. They include Bible pages or Bible abstracts taken from the family record pages of a Bible, Diaries and transcriptions from diaries, any records created by a funeral home, personal letters, unpublished manuscripts and family records. Family records would include such items as photographs of family members, pages from a wedding album or baby book. An analysis is a written or typed document explaining why certain documents prove a name/date and/or place in the applicant s lineage. The analysis may or may not be titled analysis and in many cases may actually be a letter addressed to the genealogy department. Slide 39 - Once you have categorized 12,000 documents you may purchase the DAR Genealogy Preservation pin. For each additional 60,000 documents categorized you may purchase a bar to be attached to the pin. Descendants Project hours may be combined with input from this project to earn the committee pin or bar. Slide 40 - You are now ready to start categorizing the supporting documentation. If you haven t already volunteered, remember to send an with Volunteering for SD Project in the subject line and your name and national number, and if you have ever had access to e-membership in the text portion. If you ve already signed up simply log into emembership.dar.org, click on Projects and begin. Slide 41 - If you have any questions please darprojects@dar.org. Thank you for helping with this important and exciting new endeavor!