Elementary, my dear Watson!

I see dead people! No...not ghosts, but the names of lots and lots of people who once were counted among the living. You see, I do Family Search Indexing...which is basically data entry for all kinds of vital records...births, deaths, marriages, censuses (censuss? censi?) I have been doing it for several years and I must admit...it is highly addicting and fun! What?! Looking at a bunch of old records fun?! YES! You see...it's a lot like detective work. You get to deal with all kinds of handwriting and scribbles, trying to figure out what it actually says. What exactly was that census taker trying to write down when he put "orande"? Is that a ditto mark or simply a crease in the 100 year old paper? And thank goodness we all write in English now...instead of Old English! Yikes! I did some indexing for Old English records from 1538 and they were a nightmare to try and read...all kinds of double Ss and sideways 8s that were really zeros! Plus you get to find all kinds of interesting names! I kept a running list of "names you could use" when Grandson #2 was going to born! My favorite so far has been the family who named their twins, born in 1915, Woodrow and Wilson! When I finally break the code (actually begin to understand the handwriting) and figure out what exactly Checkuslovaka means...I feel a bit like Sherlock Holmes! You can volunteer through the link below if you feel like being a detective!

http://www.familysearchindexing.org/home.jsf