I’ve been using Archion.de to access Evangelical church records in Thuringia, Germany, for the ancestors of Johann Michael Trautvetter who was born in 1839 in Wohlmuthausen. The records for many of the villages where his forebears are from are available and, other than handwriting issues, fairly easy to utilize.
It takes time to get to reading the German script and I have occasionally had to ask for help with a word or to as I want to interpret things as correctly as possible.
The problem is that it is fun to find things. It’s not always so fun to organize those findings, put them in a database (or tree), and give structure to the images that I’ve downloaded so that I can find them again. I’ve also had to make certain that I’ve included enough information with each downloaded image or file so that I can craft a citation later. That means: type of record, book used to get record, page number, year of event (as not all records include the year on each page), who originally had or created the image, website used to obtain the image, and date of access.
I know some people enter each thing in their genealogical database as they find it. When using records in a language other than English, I find the stopping requires me to gear back up when I go back to looking at the records for the next entry. When using church records, for example, I prefer to find all the records for the children (at least their births and baptisms) and the parents and then stop and work up the data entry. Then when doing the entry, I can review what I have found as I’m entering it in the database. Since I’m entering it in when it’s not as fresh, I find that I catch more errors of one sort or another that way.
But, for me, when I’m using foreign-language records, going back and forth constantly slows me down too much. I lose my place too easily and am concerned I’ll overlook something. I also research more efficiently and effectively if I switch between tasks of looking for things and entering data too often.
Your mileage may vary.
2 Responses
I like to record what I find in a Word document as I find it. Then I can record the citation, along with the URL. I’ll also record the name of the file I downloaded. Once I have finished working in the database and have collected what I could of other family members, then I can work on entering the information in my genealogy database. Sometimes, it takes me working in a database collection awhile before deciding how I’ll enter it into RootsMagic.
I use clipboard with a silver clip I move down the page and also stand it up with propping with books. When used a desktop I had a clipbpard attached with device moving down the page. I too got lost and remembered the Desktop device I used and made one by my laptop.