Student Training

The Valley City Times-Record is the newspaper of record for the Valley City area.  A form of the paper has been in existence since 1880.  It is an invaluable historical resource for the community, as well as for genealogical researchers.

The obituraries (see Wikipedia entry) found in newspapers often provide very useful information to individuals doing genealogical work, and often indicate close relatives to the deceased.  Often researchers will rely on obituaries to learn more about their relatives, or about the period.  Several years ago, two individuals were hired to index the Obituaries and Death Notices of the Times-Record.  Their work is incomplete, and not all of it of the best quality.

We now want to start this project up again.  It is important that students working on this project know what they are looking for.  Please check out Legacy.com for examples of the kinds of obituaries you are likely to find in the Times-Record.  Legacy.com is a company that provides access to thousands of obituaries from around the country.

1.) Sign in to Blackboard and click the My VCSU link. Then, go to the My Web Applications menu and click on the  folder.

2.) Click on Obituary List at the top of the page.

3.) To add a new obituary to the list, click the green New button in the top right corner of the page.

4.) Fill in the information as provided on the paper obituary form.

4a.) If there is no date of birth or date of death, enter 00/00/0000.

4b.) Choose the correct publication from the Publication(s) drop-down menu. Enter the page number (if available) and Press Date, and click the green Add button.

4c.) Click the blue Save button to save the record.

Repeat this process for each obituary record.

As you complete lines on the paper form, highlight each last name as you go along. This allows us to easily differentiate completed forms from those that still need to be indexed.