Indexing Civil & Parish Records
Indexing Volunteer Opportunities
We are excited to have you join us in indexing Italian Civil and Parish records! We are grateful for your willingness to volunteer and know that this data is used by both academic and genealogical researchers.
Below you will find general guidelines for how to best conduct a successful indexing project:
Downloadable Templates: Birth, Marriage, & Death
Civil Records Italian - English Templates: Birth, Marriage, & Death
Additional Resource: Guidelines for Transcriptions with Examples of Records from the Santa Maria dello Spiazao parish in Fimon Vicenza. Years 1612-1616. by Professor Elda Forin Martelozzo Link
Sicilian Occupation Guide Angela Whaley Link
Planning:
Choose the town you want to index. It helps to find a town you are passionate about! Identify the available records for the town.
Civil: Found on the Antenati or FamilySearch.
Parish: Online or at a local parish.
Plan the scope of your Indexing project.
Do you want to index only church records or only civil records? Only births, or marriages, or deaths? Many people choose to index all of the records of their town.
Pick a starting point.
The best practice is to begin with the first available records, in Italy this generally means Civil Marriages and Births, or the earliest church book you have access to.
Partnerships.
Do you have any fellow researchers who you want to work with? It can be very helpful to have a partner to work with.
First identify what parts of the project each will work on.
One may index births and the other deaths.
One may index all of the records, and the other will follow up with a review to check for accuracy and mistakes.
Check out our Ongoing Projects page to see what projects other researchers have started.
Requirements:
All indices must be as accurate to the data and images available as possible.
All images available for indexing must be noted or indexed appropriately.
Indexes must be based on the individual records, not the annual indices: Annual indices sometimes do not include all records, often include errors, and do not have as much information as the actual images.
Follow our indexing templates:. While not all of the information in the template may be on each record, having uniform data is hugely important to our goal!
Example: The first image is the front cover of the registry book. The indexer should note - Image 1 - Book Front Cover. If the second image is blank - the indexer should note - Image 2 - Blank.
All indexed images should have notation or data.
Best Practices:
Start at the beginning. The best way to create a thorough index is to start at page 1 of the earliest available records for the town.
Familiarize yourself with the layout of the records. Please note that the format can and will change from year to year.
Include a link on the spreadsheet to the actual image. If they are not digitally available obviously this will not apply. This link to the actual image assists researchers to quickly view the actual documentation, and any additional information from the record.
Index all names as they appear: While some names may be spelled differently than you usually see in the town, or have a different last letter (Adamo, Adami), we ask that you use the spelling that appears on the record, instead of standardizing the names.
Do not translate or convert. When indexing records, do not translate professions or names to their English equivalents. The only items that can be translated are dates. And of course any notes you made need to make for unreadable or unclear information can be in English.
Do not skip records. If you come to a record that you can not read, add a row anyway and indicate that the record can not be read.
Do not assume the index is the last page of the year. Often Part II or III of a Registry are listed after the indexes. These usually contain names of individuals from other towns. These records are vital for individuals looking for people who are traveling or migrating.
Set appropriate goals. Indexing is a considerable project and it is easy to get overwhelmed. Find a schedule that works for you. Is it one year of births a day, 4 days a week? Is it 10 years of records every Saturday? Whatever works for you, celebrate your victories, and keep your motivation up!
We can assist in connecting you with other researchers, provide you with indexing templates, and provide additional guidance on your project as needed. Your volunteer work is invaluable to helping other researchers and future generations to explore and embrace their Italian history.