Getting Started guide
For centuries, key moments in our ancestors lives have been captured on fragile paper. The world s stories are disappearing too quickly. We ve been working to change that, but we can t do it alone.
Welcome to the Ancestry World Archives Project The Ancestry World Archives Project is a community-based initiative that preserves historical records and makes them accessible free of charge to people who are researching their family history. Here s how it works: Ancestry.com acquires and scans historical records. Contributors like you transcribe important facts such as names, dates and locations to create searchable record indexes. Our easy-to-use keying tool lets you participate at your own convenience, using your home computer. To ensure accuracy, two contributors key each record. If their transcription of a certain field varies, an arbitrator reviews both versions, comparing them to the original record image, and decides which interpretation is correct. The indexes are free for everyone on Ancestry.com, making more family history information available to people who are searching for their ancestors.
gettingstarted 1 Sign into Ancestry.com Anyone can participate in the World Archives Project. You do not need to have an Ancestry.com subscription, but you do need to be a registered user of Ancestry.com or a related site such as Ancestry.ca or Ancestry.co.uk. If you are already a registered user of an Ancestry site, sign in with your regular username and password. If you do not have an Ancestry username, you ll need to register here to create a free account. ff ff Enter your name and email address and then click the Continue button. You will be assigned a username and password. You can change your username and/or password by clicking the change to something easier for me to remember link.
2 Download the Keying Tool The World Archives Project uses a desktop keying tool that you can download onto your own computer. Once you ve installed the keying tool, you can download a set of record images and key them at your own convenience. You must be connected to the Internet in order to download a new image set or submit a completed image set. You do not need to be online while you are keying the records. From anywhere on Ancestry.com, click on the Collaborate tab and select Ancestry World Archives Project. You can also go directly to this page by entering this URL into your browser: www.ancestry.com/worldarchivesproject It s a good idea to bookmark this page so that you can easily return to it. Once you ve joined the Project, this link will automatically take you to your World Archives Project Dashboard, where you ll see your keying statistics, available projects, recent blog and message board posts and more. Click the orange Download button. On the next page you ll need to click the Download button again. Click Run and then follow the download prompts.
3 Log into the Keying Tool Once you ve downloaded the keying tool, it will be listed in your All Programs menu and will also have an icon on your desktop. To open the tool, just double-click on the desktop icon. You cannot open the keying tool from Ancestry.com. Desktop Icon: When you open the keying tool, you ll see this screen: Enter your Ancestry username and password in the login box. Next you ll see this screen, where you ll need to answer a few questions and accept the Terms and Conditions. If you are participating on behalf of a genealogical society or other organization, please indicate which one.
4 Download an Image Set The records you will be keying are bundled into image sets. By design, the image sets are small enough that you can key a complete set in 15 minutes or less. You can download one image set at a time or, if you prefer, download several image sets from the same indexing project. Click the Download Image Sets button to see the list of available indexing projects. Select a project and how many image sets you d like to download, and then click the Download button.
5 Start Keying Records To begin keying, double-click on the project or highlight the project and then click the Open image set for keying button. Once the project is open you ll see the Project Instructions. After you ve read them, click Close. Start keying the first image. The Field Help instructions, located in the box in the lower left corner, will tell you what information to enter for each field. Once you ve completed an image, click the Next: Begin Next Image button.
6 Get Help If you have questions as you re keying records, go to the Help menu in the top left corner of the keying tool. Please pay particular attention to the following Help resources: ff View Help This link provides general information about how to use the keying tool. ff View Online Help This link takes you to our knowledge base, where you can search for Help articles relating to a specific project. ff View More About This Project This link takes you to a project page, which has more information about the collection you re working on. If you can t find the information you need in the Help section, you can post a question on the message board or contact our support team at worldarchivessupport@ancestry.com.
tips &Tricks Auto-populating Record Fields As you begin typing a given name, surname or place, you ll notice a box appear with suggested names or places. You can choose which suggestion to enter by using the arrow keys to navigate up or down, using your mouse or entering the number to the side of the suggestion. For example, if you begin typing the word August, you will see August appear as the first option in the box. You could simply type the number 1 and the word August would auto-populate the field. Using Wildcard Symbols If you are unsure of a name or word, you can also use wildcard symbols. Use? to represent a single character, * to represent multiple characters, and $ to indicate that the unknown character is at the end of the word. Within the main data entry section there is space to show only 10 suggested entries. To see more, click on the more option or press F12. This will bring up a window that will let you see the full list of matching entries. It will also give you a reminder of the different wildcard symbols available. If you find a good matching entry on the list, just use your mouse to choose it and click OK.
To the right of the screen you ll notice the Field Help box. If you are unsure of what to enter for a field, refer to the Field Help as it provides specific instruction on what information from the record should be entered for that field. Clicking on the See Examples link will bring up a page on Ancestry.com (requires an active Internet connection) that shows an example of the field in question. Improving On-screen Readability If you re having a hard time reading the image, you can increase the contrast of the image by clicking the High Contrast button at the top of the tool. Adjusting Image Brightness and Contrast You can click Image Options at the top of the tool to adjust the brightness and contrast. You can also click the + or magnifying glasses at the top of the tool to zoom in or out of the image. Viewing Handwriting Samples Click this button to view handwriting samples that may help you interpret individual characters.
Deciphering Handwriting When trying to read old handwriting, it is also sometimes very helpful to see examples of how the same record taker wrote different letters. For example, you may be looking at a letter and be unsure if it is a W or an M. If you found another word written by the same person that you know contained a W, this could help. To make it easier to compare handwriting you can bring up another image in the image set in a separate window. Right above the image you can see an icon of a document next to a downward arrow. Clicking one of the image options here will open the image in another window. Highlighting Correct Fields If you find that the image highlight isn t in the right place to highlight the field you are keying, you can use your mouse to drag the highlight to the right place. The highlights are set up to coincide with the form type most often encountered in a project so they may not match the form you are keying. If you find that the highlights are not helpful you can turn them off by clicking on the Highlights button in the toolbar at the top of the image.
Adding Multiple Sections to Images Sometimes the document shows that the record taker inserted different information into the record. For example, a heading of the document might show the record to be for one county, but halfway through the page the record taker indicated that they were now recording records for a different county, and began recording those residents onto the same page as the prior county. In this scenario, you would need to enter new county information. To do this, you can add a new section on the image by clicking the Add a New Section Following the Current Section button. This will allow you to enter new heading information for the new location and begin keying in records for that new section. Many images consist of two pages, check the project instruction and form descriptions to see if a new section should be created for each page. Reconciling Fields for Review You may have fields with information you entered that need to be reviewed. These could be required fields that were left blank, or fields in which you entered information that the keying tool didn t recognize. You can quickly move to the fields you need to review by using the Last Field to Review or Next Field to Review buttons. Shortcuts Several shortcut keys and buttons are available to make the process easier: Tab OR Enter You can easily maneuver from one column to the next by hitting the Tab or Enter key. You can accept a field as correct by clicking the Accept Field as Correct button or typing F7. You can mark a field blank by clicking the Mark Field Blank button or typing Ctrl + B.
If you can t read the information in a field, you can mark the field illegible by clicking the Mark Field Illegible button or typing Ctrl + I. Occasionally you will need to mark an entire row blank. In this case, you can click the Mark Entire Row Blank button or type Ctrl + Shift + B. If you need to mark an entire row in the image illegible, you can click the Mark Entire Row Illegible button or type Ctrl + Shift + I. x2 As you get used to the keying process, you can usually speed things up by double-clicking. Here are some areas where that may help: Click a downloaded image set twice to open it. Click a form type twice to select it and move to the next step. Options To make sure the keying tool is set up the way you like, there is also an Options menu. Simply click File and then Options. This will let you decide: What your language preferences are. Whether the keying tool auto-completes words based on what you enter. If you select this option, the top suggested entry will automatically fill in as you type. If you press Tab or Enter to go to the next field, the tool will automatically use the top suggested entry. What font size you prefer to use when entering information from the image What color you want the image highlights to be. The initial color is red, though you may prefer different highlight colors while working in other records. And if you are an Arbitrator you can select whether you would like to review all of the fields and/or forms for the image sets you arbitrate.
Start saving the world s stories today. www.ancestry.com/worldarchivesproject