July 12, 2019

Everyone can agree that indexed records make life easier. Instead of having to scroll through image after image to find information about your ancestor, you can use an index of searchable information to quickly find the person you’re looking for.

Unfortunately, indexing errors sometimes make the search process more difficult. Hard-to-read handwriting, damaged records, language barriers, and simple human error mean that no index is guaranteed to be 100 percent accurate. If you add the fact that sometimes the original documents had errors in the first place, it’s easy to see how complications seep in. Errors in the records or index can render the index useless for finding certain ancestors and can even cause a researcher to skip over important records.

In the past, if you came across an incorrect index on FamilySearch, there wasn’t much you could do about it besides note down the error and perhaps grumble about it to yourself. That’s all changed now! With the newest update on FamilySearch, you can make corrections to names in the index—with the ability to edit other details in the entries coming soon. By editing the index, you can help other people locate records—and ancestors—they might not have been able to find otherwise.

Read the rest of the blog post “Editing Names on Indexed Records—FamilySearch Update” to learn how to edit an index when it was indexed incorrectly or how to correct information that is wrong in the document.