IGI patron submissions - a personal opinion

[Mythology]

I'm posting this separately to avoid derailing Peter Goodey's "IGI - more doubts expressed!" thread by wandering off the point.

In that thread, Guy Etchells says, amongst other things (my emphasis):
"... I should also add that those who ignore patron submissions (note these are submitted by anyone who wishes not just members of the LDS church) are fooling themselves, some patron submissions have been added by experienced genealogists after a lifetimes work, only a fool would dismiss them without looking."

I couldn't agree more, Guy.

While my fingers seem to be having one of their rare days of hitting the right keys (don't ever ask me to do an index!), let me give an example.

There is a submitted entry on the IGI for Mary Debenham, born 6 August 1792, Alpheton, Suffolk, England, daughter of Robert Debenham and Elizabeth Bigsby.
The entry also has a vague death date of October 1848 - no day of the month, no indication of whether she died in Achnashellach or Zennor or anywhere else on the planet. Actually, with some of this lot, the assumption that she died on this planet might be regarded by some as merely optimistic guesswork on my part.
It also says spouse unavailable - so they appear to know when she died but not who she married, which looks decidedly iffy.
The entry looks even more iffy when you know that "Alpheton" is wrong. Elizabeth Bigsby is "mine" - two of my Bigsby girls married two Debenham brothers, and they've mixed the locations up - it is Thomas and Ann's children who were all born in Alpheton, Robert and Elizabeth's children being all born in Depden.

So - "it's a lot of rubbish", isn't it. Which means I'm still stuck with no idea of what happened to my 1792 Mary Debenham of Depden. Oh well, never mind - we can forget that IGI entry though, can't we?

Not if we have any sense.

Later I came across a transcript by Greg Dunn of something written by Sophia Debenham in 1893. In this, she says "father's sisters married Messieurs Dove, Colemen-Everest, Sweeting, Bennet, Shira". The spelling's a bit wobbly, "Colemen-Everest" = Thomas Coleman then George Everard, but I have all the other marriages and a burial for Susan, who didn't marry, so, by a process of elimination it has to be the elusive Mary who married "Shira".

So, I'm looking for a Mary "Shira".

What if that October 1848 death date in the dodgy IGI entry is *not* fiction?

(continues)

[Mythology]

(I don't know why this one causes duplicated text - it isn't that long! Anyway, as it does, I've split it)

Clutching at straws, I play around with probabilities for the name and, on the NBI, find a Mary Shirer buried at Leckhampton, Gloucestershire, 27 October 1848. She's allegedly 55, whereas my Mary would be 56, but that's near enough for the average burial record. From the 1851, remarried hubby is Aberdeen-born Alexander Shirer, with three kids born in Cheltenham, the oldest about 1830 - no obvious Suffolk connection here, but I note it as a long-shot possibility.

Then I check a marriage record for one of my Debenhams in Kent in 1846 and find that he gives Cheltenham as his address. I also discover that the Cheltenham branch of Debenham's store opened much earlier than I'd realised, in 1818, so, as "William the shop" is Mary's brother, a presence there prior to 1830 is likely. That cheers me up and makes me think that a trip to Gloucester RO might be worthwhile. I also find someone else giving Mary's marriage as being to Alexander Shirer, with a vague date of simply 1825 and no location, from which I conclude that they're just guessing like I am, but at least it's nice to know that someone else is thinking along the same lines.

Well, their 1825 guess is three years out, it's 1828, but I now have the marriage, Mary Debenham did indeed marry Alexander Shirer - with a bonus on the marriage record that one of the witnesses is A. Bigg. This can, I think, only be my related Ann Bigg of 1807, who, back home in Suffolk, later married a James Downing "of Birmingham", where I failed to find any trace of them, and lends weight to my theory that a James and Ann Downing who are in Cheltenham in the 1830s and 1840s are my pair - Ann's dead by 1851, so no birthplace from that, but the kids' names look right, and some of them are late enough to be in the GRO index, so that's encouraged me to stick my financial neck out and buy a birth cert for the mother's maiden name somewhere along the line.

(continues)

[Mythology]

If I had dismissed that apparently highly suspect October 1848 death date in the IGI entry and instead of making a note of it, forgotten about it by the time I came across the "Shira" reference in Sophia's writing, with a girl from Suffolk, would I have given more than a passing glance to somebody buried in Leckhampton, Gloucestershire, especially when the 1851 shows hubby as being born Aberdeen?

Just my personal opinion, but ....
If you *believe* a submitted IGI entry and take it as historical *fact*, without having any other evidence, yes, unless you're a newbie who can be forgiven, you are a fool.
If you *ignore* a submitted IGI entry, or even, like the above, ignore *all* of the entry because you know that *some* of it is wrong, you are just as big a fool.

(Finis)

[Patrisia]

So what does that make me, Myth? - a serious genealogist or just a picky searcher? ;)

[Mythology]

Ummm ..... :confused:

In the context of IGI patron submissions, I'm not sure what you mean by that!
What I am sure of is that you would neither simply swallow nor contemptuously dismiss a submitted IGI entry, so either way you're not a fool. :)

[ChristineR]

.......Just my personal opinion, but ....
If you *believe* a submitted IGI entry and take it as historical *fact*, without having any other evidence, yes, unless you're a newbie who can be forgiven, you are a fool.
If you *ignore* a submitted IGI entry, or even, like the above, ignore *all* of the entry because you know that *some* of it is wrong, you are just as big a fool.

(Finis)

|bowdown| Sums up my own personal opinion exactly, and you backed it up with a perfect example.

Christine
Australia