Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by James Tanner on his Rejoice, and Be Exceeding Glad blog site and is used with the author’s permission.

For some years now, many genealogists have been asking FamilySearch for the option to correct indexed records. From the very beginning of the FamilySearch website, it has been obvious that some of the indexing was either inaccurate or wrong. Although finding the correct record when the indexing is wrong as possible, without a way to correct the indexing subsequent searches do not find the correct record. This announcement for FamilySearch adds a whole new level of functionality to the website.

As shown in the Blog post above, when you search for an individual and there is a digital copy of the record available, you can now edit the information that is in the index. Here is an example screenshot:

Here is a screenshot of the edit screen:

The reasons for correcting the index can be either that the name is wrongly indexed or that it is wrong in the original document. The new feature also allows you to highlight the name on the indexed document.

Although the error rate in indexed documents is very low, this new development from FamilySearch will immeasurably aid the search process.

This feature is long overdue but very useful now that it has appeared.