Monday 2 July 2012

Yesterday I was up bright and early, I had two important things to achieve, the first - submit a batch of indexing to Family-search, the 2nd, start my genealogy course. The first was easy as I had downloaded my batches over the weekend, just had to check and submit. The target for Family-search was 5million names indexed for the day. The incredible news (although the figures are not yet final) is a group of around 450000 of us indexed and arbitrated OVER 10 MILLION RECORDS in 1 X 24 hour period. What an amazing achievement. All these records go on the Family Search website managed by LDS) and are FREE to search. The second task turned out a little more fiddly. I jumped on-line, checked my emails and there was an email from the institute saying I was ready to rock n roll. Logged into the site and ..nothing.. my course wasn't there. As the time was a little after 7, it was after 5pm in Toronto, so no point trying to contact them now. I flicked off an email explaning my dilemma anyway..and lo and behold a few minutes later I received a reply telling me it was still 1st July there, so I had to wait a little longer. (Cant fault their customer service it is brilliant). Waiting patiently until I finished work, I zoomed home and jumped on the pc and YES! I was on a winner. Now, if I was to be totally honest my initial impression could have been better, and I know the course is "on-line" but I feel the course material is not presented in a professional manner. There are additional pdf amendment to the materials from 2011 - come on get with it - we are now half way through 2012, surely somebody could have made the necessary adjustments to the original documentation by now? I also noticed there were a number of spelling mistakes within Module 1. I don't believe this is acceptable when the material is coming from an education institution and backed by a University. Having said that, I flew through the reading material and completed my assignment in record time. I did learn some very important data regarding to the settlement in Australia and the time frames, as well as the process for the church parish records. I know I am going to learn a tremendous amount.

No comments:

Post a Comment