familysearch.org

[carrie]

i have found a birth entry for one of my ancesters in 1822 on family search, it states the info come from patron sheets. i can't find the same entry on ancestry parish registers. does this mean it has come from another source or are the records incomplete? can anyone enlighten me
carrie

[Geoffers]

Be very, very, very careful of 'patron' submitted (information?!?!) - Being kind I might say that some of it is not very well researched, if I were not kind I could put it in far more stark and damning terms and use such words as 'fiction' and 'rubbish'.

Is this 'birth entry' a calculated year of birth based on the birth being a set number of years before a marriage? If it is, ignore it - it is no use at all. Calculated years of birth such as this do a dis-service to research unless it is made clear that it is a vague estimate.

Is the birth year and place calculated from a census entry? If so it might bear further investigation (e..g check several census returns and parish registers/birth registration for the place of birth).

continued....

[Geoffers]

part 2......
Some of these 'patron submitted' entries are based on published genealogies from the late 19th century. Many such published works are a complete fiction created to pander to the desire of the person commissioning the work to have a 'good' history. So the patron submitted entry is likely to be repeating a lie.

How complete are 'ancestry.com parish registers'? Are these facsimiles of original registers so that you can look at every entry, or are they transcripts? If original egisters and the expected baptism is in the 19th century, check for baptisms up to 20 years later. There was an increasing tendency to baptise children later in life, or to do a job lot. Not all did this, but there was a significant proportion in some areas.

If ancestry registers are transcripts, how complete are the transcripts? Do they include illegible or partially legible entries, is it easy to search for varient spellings. In my opinion, transcripts are just a guide - check the original register.

Geoffers

[Guy Etchells]

Be very, very, very careful of 'patron' submitted (information?!?!) - Being kind I might say that some of it is not very well researched, if I were not kind I could put it in far more stark and damning terms and use such words as 'fiction' and 'rubbish'.

Is this 'birth entry' a calculated year of birth based on the birth being a set number of years before a marriage? If it is, ignore it - it is no use at all. Calculated years of birth such as this do a dis-service to research unless it is made clear that it is a vague estimate.

Is the birth year and place calculated from a census entry? If so it might bear further investigation (e..g check several census returns and parish registers/birth registration for the place of birth).

continued....
And some Patron submissions have been submitted by experienced genealogists after years of detailed research and checking of sources.

The word patron does not necessarily mean "member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" as some seem to think.
For years members of the public including serious genealogists have submitted their work to the LDS for inclusion.
For many years this was the only place that guaranteed to accept ones work and guaranteed to make it freely available for years to come.
Submitting work to the LDS was in many ways preferable to submitting work to the Society of Genealogists who often refused to accept work on the grounds of lack of space.

Dismissing the patron submissions in such a way is like dismissing Heralds Visitations because some Heralds faked some pedigrees.
Cheers
Guy

[Geoffers]

And some Patron submissions have been submitted by experienced genealogists after years of detailed research and checking of sources.
I don't doubt that you have seen such work and that it exists - I hope that Carrie's entry is from one of these.

But I would still maintain that anyone needs to be careful in looking at patron submitted records - or indeed any published family history research.

Geoffers

[Pam Downes]

Hi Carrie,
Both Geoffers and Guy are correct. Some parts of the IGI are very accurate. Other parts are just rubbish.
When I first began my family research I was really excited to find my great grandfather's birth date, place (though incorrect as they'd entered registration district not village), and his parents' names on the IGI. I then went searching for more info on his parents and found Mary 'birth 1838 of, Sleaford' and John 'birth 1836 of, Sleaford'. Wow, this family history research stuff is dead easy. Um, not quite. Mary was actually baptised in Stixwould in 1824, and John in 1821 in Kirkby Laythorpe. And when you look on Ancestral File the errors just increase. Great granddad's marriage date, place, and wife are correctly recorded, but they've been given the wrong children and death dates and places.
So from that I've drawn up a few 'rules' about the IGI and Ancestral File.
1. If the entry says 'extracted from records for the locality' (usuallyBTs), I accept it as correct until I can see the actual record and not just the transcription.
2. If an entry is 'patron submitted' but says something like 'baptised 31st August 1800, St Peter at Arches Lincoln' then I believe there is a strong possibility that this information is correct, but would treat with caution until I can see the actual record.
3. A patron submitted entry giving just a year/place of birth is ignored unless it agrees with census details from more than one year. (Allowing for the census years to be one or two years either way.)
4. And I never trust anyone one's work - including my own since the other week I found that when I first started this lark I wrote two dates incorrectly. :D

As regards the parish registers on Ancestry, they are very far from complete. For instance it quotes 49 Sharps and 225 Sharpes in Lincolnshire. As probably 60 of those lived in one village alone between 1800-1900, you can perhaps get some idea of the 'very incomplete'. :)
Pam Downes

[kazrbutler]

I have also come across information that was incorrect in others work, not just on Family Search. Sometimes errors can simply be because of lack of information: where parishes are not covered on Family Search and / or on local indexes / transcriptions.
Wherever my information comes from: IGI, family member who has researched the family tree etc: I try to do research to check things out. As well as checking other sources for baptisms, marriages etc - preferably original, one very useful thing I have found, is to follow families through the censuses. Family members who put trees together a few years ago often did not have the resources available today. Doing this additional work, as allowed me to highlight any problems in trees or links on IGI: missing generations, missing children, family going down the wrong track etc. Things going wrong in a tree seem to be more likely where the surname is fairly common in the area. It has also enabled me to fill in some gaps, such as baptisms where a person was listed as completely the wrong age in one particular census - usually 1881, or place of marriage was unidentified.

Karen

[carrie]

thanks for all your comments, very enlightening to hear differing views,
i know a very distant relative as done some work on the same line so it is possible the info could have come from them, they were not a member of the church so i had discounted this before. the birth actually ties in with all the census info i have regarding age and area so it could be fairly accurate ,though it does make me think now that the mothers name could be wrong as this has been a brick wall i know the fathers name is correct because i have her marriage certificate. unfortunately we don't all have the time and resourses to travel to different parishes to locate the original record.
regards
carrie

[Mythology]

"we don't all have the time and resourses to travel to different parishes to locate the original record."

You havent said where or when this was, so no guarantees, but ...

Most parish registers have been deposited at the appropriate archive - usually the county record office.
Many record offices will supply fiche copies of the registers at a reasonable price.
Only a few months ago, I bought the *complete* parish registers up to about 1900 of a Suffolk village, 10 microfiche, total cost including handling charge and postage £26 and a few pence - almost exactly the same as the cost of a day return to Ipswich on the train from my part of London.

[carrie]

the area is birmingham warwickshire
when i looked on the website for birmingham archives it seemmed to read that achives available in the library would not be looked up by the staff but you could employ a local professional to research for you for a fee, i didn't see any mention of copies being available to buy but i may have read it wrong. i will have another look thanks carrie

[Colin Moretti]

Hello Carrie

The next best thing to the fiche copies of the register is a family history society transcription, they usually include all the information in the registers, unlike the IGI which just has the date and the names of the parties involved. The Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry covers Birmingham and they have a very comprehensive list of publications, the 2004 printed edition of their catalogue runs to 34 A5 pages (nor all Birmingham of course).

Good luck

Colin

[Geoffers]

the area is birmingham warwickshire......i didn't see any mention of copies being available to buy but i may have read it wrong. i will have another look thanks carrie
Are you able to get to a mormon record centre, where you might hire film copies of the registers - or if near London, the Society of Genealogists has a large stock of records.

Geoffers

[carrie]

hi geoffers
there is (i think) a mormon record centre near me (i'm in manchester) but i'm not sure what you mean by 'hire film copies' sorry if this sounds stupid.
thanks colin for the birmingham website unfortunately the parish i need is not yet available for 1822 but still a great site for links to other info including the 1841 census for birmingham which i didn't know was online.
carrie

[Geoffers]

but i'm not sure what you mean by 'hire film copies'Many original parish registers have been photgraphically copied onto microfilm. I understand that you can hire copies of these films at mormon record centre, in other words, you pay a small fee and have use of the film for a set period of time.

Geoffers

[Guy Etchells]

"we don't all have the time and resourses to travel to different parishes to locate the original record."

You havent said where or when this was, so no guarantees, but ...

Most parish registers have been deposited at the appropriate archive - usually the county record office.
Many record offices will supply fiche copies of the registers at a reasonable price.
Only a few months ago, I bought the *complete* parish registers up to about 1900 of a Suffolk village, 10 microfiche, total cost including handling charge and postage £26 and a few pence - almost exactly the same as the cost of a day return to Ipswich on the train from my part of London.

Which is why I phoned every CRO I could think of last year to compile my "Counties selling fiche pages"

Check it out you may find the parish you are interested in is available on fiche or film.
Cheers
Guy

[Guy Etchells]

You go to the FHC and order the film/fiche from Salt Lake City (modest cost fractionally more than postage charge).
This allows the film to be retained by the FHC for 30 days, if the loan is extended for another 30 you pay again on extending again the film may be retained indefinitely.
If you order a microfiche this is retained indefinitely at the FHC.
See
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Home/FAQ/frameset_faq.asp?FAQ=faq_fhc.asp
or as a tiny url
http://tinyurl.com/azjw4
Cheers
Guy

[kazrbutler]

Which is why I phoned every CRO I could think of last year to compile my "Counties selling fiche pages"
Thanks for this Guy. Just what I needed as I was planning to do research into family which is further afield. It will save me searching around for relevant sources - and it looks as though many of the counties I will need sell fiche.

|jumphappy

One happy person.
Karen

[Geoffers]

Which is why I phoned every CRO I could think of last year to compile my "Counties selling fiche pages"
How very useful - What a splendid fellow! To help with pointing new researchers towards this, would there be any chance of you creating a new thread in say the Beginners forum? That way the URL will be easier to locate in future.

Geoffers

[uksearch]

hi geoffers
there is (i think) a mormon record centre near me (i'm in manchester)SNIP
carrie
Yes there is one in Wythenshawe. I lived opposite it and watched it being built when I was a kid.

UK

Manchester England
Altrincham Road
Wythenshawe, Lancashire County, England
Phone: 0161-902-9279
Hours: M-W 9.30am-12.30pm, 12.45pm-3pm; T, W 7pm-9pm; Sun (LDS members only) 2pm-5pm last Sun only.

[BeeE586]

My thanks also to Guy. He gave me this information once before and I neglected to store the site as 'Favourite' - I have now done so.

A question. Guy, how do you find the time to do all the things you do ?
and for which many of us are grateful.

Eileen -- |wave|

[Guy Etchells]

That's easy to answer BeeE586. I am from Scotland and live in Yorkshire, hence I am so tight I keep everything and don't spend anything not even the time.
Cheers
Guy

[Linda]

That reminds me of:

Some time ago we saw, here in Canada, a mug with the following printed on it, which was *supposed* to be a Yorkshire motto. I was born in Yorkshire and lived there 21 years and had never heard it before. My hubby, who is Scottish, now teases me all the time about it.:

"hear all, see all, say nowt;
eat all, sup all, pay nowt;
and if you ever do owt for nowt, do it for thee sen"

I don't know where it came from, but it ain't true!;)

Linda

[Dave]

How very useful - What a splendid fellow! To help with pointing new researchers towards this, would there be any chance of you creating a new thread in say the Beginners forum? That way the URL will be easier to locate in future.

Geoffers
I also intend putting this link on the FreeREG pages if no objection

My plug for FreeREG .......data needed...coming soon

Dave

Project Manager

[Guy Etchells]

Web sites say it comes from the 15th century, it's also known as the Yorkshire creed.

Of course I shan't mention that a Yorkshireman is a Scotsman with the generosity removed. ;)
Cheers
Guy

[Sandra Parker]

[QUOTE=Linda]That reminds me of:

I was born in Yorkshire and lived there 21 years and had never heard it before. My hubby, who is Scottish, now teases me all the time about it.:

"hear all, see all, say nowt;
eat all, sup all, pay nowt;
and if you ever do owt for nowt, do it for thee sen"

I don't know where it came from, but it ain't true!;)


Hi Lind nowt;
and if you ever do owt for nowt, do it for thee sen"

I don't know where it came from, but it ain't true!;)


Hi Linda
My husband, now in his 70's, was taught this by his father who lived in Cheshire, entitled 'advice from a Yorkshire father'.
Sandra
Darwin

[Diane Grant-Salmon]

Of course I shan't mention that a Yorkshireman is a Scotsman with the generosity removed. ;)
Cheers
Guy

Yes, I was brought up with *the Yorkshire motto* ........ that's why this 'Yorksher Lass' didn't marry a 'Yorksher' Lad ...... twice! ;)

[Linda]

Of course I shan't mention that a Yorkshireman is a Scotsman with the generosity removed


Good thing I'm not a man then! :D

Linda