IGI Entries Submitted By LDS Church Members

[ElaineMaul]

Hi,
Does anyone have any experience of following up an IGI entry that has been submitted by a member of the LDS church?

There is a marriage entry between George Squire and Hannah Freeman on 28 May 1792 in Kimpton, Hertfordshire but the entry says that it was submitted by a member of the LDS church. If I (somehow?) arrange to get a copy of the original LDS film will it give me much information? Did the people making these manual submissions have to give any sort of evidence to back it up?

Thanks.
Elaine

[Copper]

No they did not have to give any evidence for their submissions.

I don't think the LDS film will tell you anything else. I would try and get a copy of the entry from the register in the appropriate record office.

[v.wells]

When an entry is submitted by a member it means that it hasn't been sourced. If it has been sourced it will give you the batchfile, you click on the batch file and it brings up another screen that allows you to then search the parish records. I personally wouldn't waste my money on unsourced material. Did you try Pallot's or parish records from Hertfords.? Sorry, my $ stay in my wallet til I can probably prove it.

[ET in the USA]

Hope no one takes offense. I'm sure this isn't 'typical' but ...
A couple of years ago I was soooo thrilled that someone else had researched an unusual surname I've been working on that I ordered the CD from the LDS website.
They had Henry married to Ann, but based on my research, it was the wrong Henry. "Their" Henry died at 2+ years old and I had seen the grave in Worcestershire. Being a careful researcher, I emailed the CD creator and basically he didn't want to know and pretty much said -
1. It was done by a Professional researcher in Utah (using only films, of course).
2. It was finished, published and off the 'to do' list.
3. He was now leaving for China to teach English .. so don't bother him with details...

I felt gypped that I had spent money for his shoddy research when all he cared about was getting the thing finished so he could educate the heathens.

Since the IGI viewer (you) has no way of knowing the quality of the research, stick to extracted IGI entries and use the submitted ones as a clue to possible search areas.

Granted, I don't know that much about the church, but is it really OK to have a 2 year old married to a 30 year old ?

[Mutley]

I know the LDS submitted entries take a lot of flak and one has to be extremely careful but I will be forever grateful to a nameless person.

They gave the name of the church and I was able establish from the parish records that the entry was correct and further the line.

It was a brickwall that I would never have knocked down without the submitted entry.

I also think that some of the entries maybe from the BVRI though the submitter does not say. These can be correct.

Nothing ventured nothing gained. I always think they are worth checking if only to disprove.

[MarkJ]

I tend to agree with the general opinion - the extracted records are generally fairly reliable, in as much as other transcripts are. You get the odd mistake, but in general, they are good pointers. But I would still look at the original records if at all possible.
The "submitted" records vary greatly. Some are total fabrication, some are based on guesswork and manipulation to fit. Occasionally, you come across very good submissions, but most of those I have seen have been pretty bizarre! As with any source of information, they sometimes come up trumps - but always check the original records if possible.
Having said all that, I have seen some real fairy stories on websites! One chap had done some work on one of my lines and had got further than I had. When I asked him about it, he had got to the same point I had - where there were two possible fathers for a person, and his answer was that he simply picked one of them at random and carried on! As it happens, he picked the wrong one I discovered later and he did change his tree online, but that sort of thing can result in lots of people basing their own tree on this kind of "research".
I would reiterate the old saying - always cross check anything! If you are not 100% sure, make a note to that effect and come back to it later.

Mark

[suedent]

If it's any consolation it annoys current LDS members as much as it does us. I have had several conversations with the couple that used to run my local LDS centre and they would often felt frustrated at some of the guesswork involved with the submitted entries.

The Church has tried to encourage their members to check & double check their sources & not to add family lore as fact. Unfortunately human nature being what it is some people just won't admit that they might be mistaken.

I have always viewed IGI submitted entries with a huge pinch of salt, in the same way that I regard entries to Worldconnect at Rootsweb.

[Guy Etchells]

Much is said about the unreliability of "submitted" records, but the same may be said of many transcripts.
Take the NBI for example:
Having transcripted the burials for Bottesford in Leicestershire from parish registers and uploaded them to my website I was alarmed when the NBI was released and on the first page of Bottesford burials there were many many errors.
I immediately checked the Parish Registers and to my relief my transcripts were accurate but the transcriber for the NBI had made mistakes, some glaring mistakes.

Again one could point to the pedigrees compiled by "Heralds", some of these pedigrees are little more than works of fiction, yet they form the basis of heraldry.

The moral of the all this is stop moaning about inaccuracies, check the original records and other contemporary records to improve the confidence rating of the origin record.
With experience one finds that no resource is 100% accurate - all contain mistakes, but with care and by consulting as much of the contemporary material as possible an accurate tree may be compiled.
Never accept a single source as proof, it is only one piece of evidence out of the many required to make an informed decision.
Cheers
Guy

[Geoffers]

There is a marriage entry between George Squire and Hannah Freeman on 28 May 1792 in Kimpton, Hertfordshire but the entry says that it was submitted by a member of the LDS church. If I (somehow?) arrange to get a copy of the original LDS film will it give me much information?

The information an entry should give is:

Groom and Bride - Name, marital status (single or widowed), residence (frequently of no use and just recorded as 'of this parish')

If the marriage was by licence or banns and in the case of a minor getting married, it should state that the marriage took place with the consent of a parent

Date and by whom married

The signature or mark of groom and bride is given

Witnesses signatures or their names and marks. (Witnesses are often family and quite often a church official such as a churchwarden).

The only way you will find out if the entry is accurate is to check it for yourself.

[Rove]

I am doing a One Name Study

A good few years ago I wrote to the LDS in Utah.

While researching my family name in Berkshire and Wiltshire came across quite a few entries that were ' submitted' by this relative of my family. I copied about ten entries. I checked them up and all proved genuine. Some where submitted by Mr X and some by his spouse Mrs X. I went through the Parish records on film and found them all there.

I also found out that Mr and Mrs X moved from UK to Utah and were members of the Mormon Church. I also found out that there were two films that contained more data on the research carried out by Mr ad Mrs X. I did have the reference numbers etc for these films.

When I received the reply to my letter from Utah, I was told that I had to prove my relationship to this family before the two films would be made available to me so to be viewed at the LDS Centre I was attending.

These two films covered data on four families plus my family. Shortly after I received this letter I was unwell and stopped attending the LDS FH Centre which was about ten miles away from my home. I also lost a bit of interest in my research and eventually forgot about the matter.

[MarkJ]

The moral of the all this is stop moaning about inaccuracies, check the original records and other contemporary records to improve the confidence rating of the origin record.
With experience one finds that no resource is 100% accurate - all contain mistakes, but with care and by consulting as much of the contemporary material as possible an accurate tree may be compiled.
Never accept a single source as proof, it is only one piece of evidence out of the many required to make an informed decision.
Cheers
Guy

Indeed. Even the records upon which we all tend to rely - such as censues and even church records - were compiled by humans, who, as we know, can make mistakes! Any layer on top of those - such as transcriptions - can add another chance of error creeping in.
As Guy says, if at all possible, cross check all records as much as you can.
That applies to all records, not just the LDS submissions. Family hearsay - which we often come across, both on this forum and in real life - is often either total fantasy or very muddled. Again, I note these tales down, mark the fact that they are not fact and then attempt to trace the truth if possible. Remember that we all make mistakes and we need to try to ensure our records are as accurate as possible. One single incorrect entry in a tree can result in a lot of wasted effort (I am sure we have all made that sort of error -especially when we started!)

Mark

[jeanettemarie]

I came across lots like that for my family name,and it says you have to have permission also to view such files, how can you prove you are related if you do not know if it is the right line or not. As there must be hundreds of names the same. |doh|

[chris.spensley]

The records in the LDS site have inaccuracies, for example in my own family history research I came across 2 men named Henry Clarkson both born 1826, one from Sherburn near Norton in N. Yorkshire and the other from Sherburn in Elnet in West Yorkshire. I believed the former to be my ancestor's brother, but other researchers had 2 generations of the other man's ancestors in their trees, which had happened because when the LDS were making the films they had inserted some pages of the Sherburn registers in the middle of those from Sherburn in Elnet and so they appeared in the Sherburn in Elnet film. Fortunately this was corrected by the LDS because a very diligent researcher who lived in Salt lake City also realised the error and insisted that they investigate it and put it right. Eventually the incorrect film was removed from the archives and replaced. I was sure I had the correct ancestors based on the strong repetition of family names over many generations, but I did not add them to my tree until the dilemma had been resolved.

[ElaineMaul]

Thank you all for your very interesting replies.
Initially I didn't notice that the entry had been manually submitted ..... it was only when I used the link posted by someone here that enables you to specifically search the batches for a specific place that this entry 'disappeared' when I searched for Squires in Kimpton.
So..... can I infer that if there is a genuine entry in the parish records for this couple that it didn't get transcribed? After all, if it had, I'd find it in an 'ordinary' batch? Or I suppose it could mean it has been very badly transcribed, although I did also search for Freeman and didn't find it?
Luckily the Herfordshire records office is just down the road so I must make the effort to go there some Saturday.

By the way, out of interest, are there any websites etc that tell you how the LDS church went about doing what they've done? When did they start putting together the IGI? How did they get the information?
I'm just curious!
Elaine

[Ken Boyce]

Re IGI Submitted Records
When discussing the LDS submitted records one must put into context the purpose of the data, how the data is normally collected and also take into account that the person compiling the record for his or her families process into the church will most likely have little or no interest in or knowledge of even the basics of genealogy. There is no requirement that the data presented has to meet the minimum standards of genealogy (whatever that may be). The only requirement is that the member completes the paperwork as expeditiously as possible and presumably in good conscience.

The church supplies the means and facilities but it is up to the individual to do the detective work – what a challenge for a novice as it is no less a daunting task for a church member to produce a family history than it has been for us outsiders – it took many of us enthusiasts about a year just to get familiar with whets what – it would likely be longer for a church member who has other priorities and/or interests and who is not desirous of ever becoming genealogically literate. In reality how many of us would be willing to take several yrs going through the genealogical hoops for entrance into any organization unless it was related to our genealogical hobby or profession

I have some friends who are LDS church members - beautiful people but they know absolutely zilch about family history they were helped over the hurdles by other church members a case of the blind leading the blind!

Should you expect accuracy from someone who is completely unaware of how to set about the task and has little inclination to become educated? If you don’t know your subject how do you know you have erred!

My preliminary investigations lead me to suspect that some of my 16/17C C of E ancestors have been re-baptised and have been taken through the pearly gates on several different occasions with different well meaning, sincere, honest and delightful Mormon families and have enjoyed every moment of the journey and will be happy to repeat the experience for eons to come - on the other hand there’s Aunt Gladys the notorious clairvoyant who………

Regards

[Guy Etchells]

By the way, out of interest, are there any websites etc that tell you how the LDS church went about doing what they've done? When did they start putting together the IGI? How did they get the information?
I'm just curious!
Elaine

Perhaps the following summary might help people understand just what the IGI is.

It could be said the IGI started "life" back in 1927 as the Temple Records Index Bureau (TIB), which as the name suggests indexed the Temple Ordinances.
These are the LDS Church ordinances of Baptism (into the Church of Latter-day Saints) Endowment and Sealing. Eventually the TIB grew into a card index file containing 30 million individuals from the sixteenth century to the 1970s, it was replaced by the Computer File Index (CFI) in 1973.

The CFI was virtually the TIB card index converted to a computer database. It continued to grow as more Temple Ordinances were added until Fred Filby paid a visit to Salt Lake City. He saw the value of the CFI to British users and negotiated with the LDS to make it available in the UK.
The CFI first appeared in the UK on microfiche in 1976 a later edition with many additional records appeared in 1978 and a further edition in 1981 but this latter edition appeared under the name of the International Genealogical Index (IGI).

The IGI continued to be produced on microfiche however during the 1980s entries were allowed from controlled extraction that had not undergone the Temple Ordinances this continued until the 1988 edition of microfiche. A decision was then made (1990) to remove these additional entries and the subsequent 1992 microfiche did not contain them.

At the same time (1990) the records extracted from controlled extractions were compiled into the Vital Records database. Any records on the Vital Records database that are also on the IGI are due to patron submissions of the data rather than from the controlled extractions.

The IGI was made available on line and the decision made not to produce further updates to the microfiche version.
When the IGI was made available on line the fields containing the ordinances (B, E & S columns of the fiche versions) were suppressed. These fields may only be accessed by certain church members at the Family History Centers.

It is/was possible to purchase the IGI on microfiche (no longer available direct from the LDS) or access it online.
For a little while the IGI was available on CD for sale to the public through some type of joint venture with the LDS but due to the price the other party was charging the LDS withdrew from the project and so the IGI on CD for a while was only available at LDS Family History Centres (FHC) and a few Family History Society libraries.

The online IGI has the temple ordinances suppressed but these may be viewed at a FHC or on the microfiche version in columns B, E & S.

Controlled Extraction entry codes, see Parish & Vital Records Listing for full details-
C or P for births or christenings
J, K or M (excluding M1) marriages
Some numbers are also controlled extractions (725 - Gibsons Oxfordshire Marriage Index)
Rule of thumb -
Any fully numeric entry whose third digit is less than 4 will almost certainly be a patron submitted entry.

Researchers if they wish to cover all the records should search
The 1988 IGI on microfiche (if possible, some fiche of this edition are in private hands and some still available at Family History Society libraries, public libraries etc.)
FamilySearch on the internet (IGI & Vital Records)
and also the British Isles Vital Records Index on CD as these are not yet on line.

Hope this helps
Cheers
Guy

[suedent]

Indeed. Even the records upon which we all tend to rely - such as censues and even church records - were compiled by humans, who, as we know, can make mistakes! Any layer on top of those - such as transcriptions - can add another chance of error creeping in.
Mark

This is so true. I have even found errors on GRO issued marriage certificates when the original Church record has been misread. (Though having seen the originals I don't know how they managed it!)

[ElaineMaul]

Hi Guy,
Thank you for going to so much trouble to post such a lot of information.


Perhaps the following summary might help people understand just what the IGI is.

It could be said the IGI started "life" back in 1927 as the Temple Records Index Bureau (TIB), which as the name suggests indexed the Temple Ordinances.
These are the LDS Church ordinances of Baptism (into the Church of Latter-day Saints) Endowment and Sealing.
So, I take it that these are just the list of people that those within the LDS church have decided are 'theirs' and who they want to have baptised into the LDS church, as per their beliefs? From a genealogical point of view, it sounds as though they have only minimal use?


At the same time (1990) the records extracted from controlled extractions were compiled into the Vital Records database. Any records on the Vital Records database that are also on the IGI are due to patron submissions of the data rather than from the controlled extractions.

Are these 'controlled extractions' where they have 'processed' the parish records? Do you know how they went about locating parish records and if they had a standard way of using the data to add to the Vital Records database. Also, I'm still not completely clear about the distinction between the Vital Records database and the IGI as far as where the data has come from (either a blonde moment ...... or a late-Friday-afternoon moment :o).

Thanks again,
Elaine

[Guy Etchells]

Yes, since 1990 no controlled extractions have been added to the IGI instead they are transcribed for the "new" Vital Records Index.
The controlled extractions may be filmed parish registers which are then transcribed, or they may be filmed bishop's transcripts or even third party compilations of transcripts.The records of the VRI do not go through the temple ordinances but are simply transcribed for the index.

The main difference between the IGI and the VRI is the IGI is an index of the ordinances of the LDS. I.E. it indexes the baptisms, Endowments and Sealings that are offered in the Church Temples of the LDS.

The two databases in effect compliment each other, there are some duplicated records but these are when patrons have submitted their own research to the IGI.
Cheers
Guy

[Mutley]

Sorry to butt in,
but I am interested and Guy your explanation is great but could you just clarify please.

Is the BVRI the same as the VRI?
Is the BVRI the one you can buy on 20 odd CD's from the LDS?
And is this the index that is NOT on the LDS site online and has lots more extracted records from parish registers than are in the online index?

[BeeE586]

I was fascinated by Guy's details about the IGI, and indeed used the CFI as it then was when I began my research about thirty years ago. A friend and I also purchased seven counties of the 1988 version when it was published on microfiche for about £20 each as it was cheaper than travelling to Record Offices and Libraries. I still have them. Another kind friend has the Vital Records CD which I can borrow. However, although I have written numerous letters over the years to the people who have supposedly submitted family details I have never yet had a reply.

Let me say it also, as it can never be said often enough - check, check and check again, as many original sources as possible, one source is never enough.

Eileen

[Guy Etchells]

Vital Records Index each area may eventually have a VRI. At present there is the British Isles Vital Records Index [BIVRI or BVRI (now in 2nd edition)] and contains 16 CDs. The Australian Vital Records Index (4 CDs), the North American Vital Records Index (7 CDs), Western European Vital Records Index (21 CDs) and two which are also on the online the Middle America - Mexico Vital Records Index (4 CDs), the Scandinavian Vital Records Index (7 CDs).

Only the last two of these are online the rest are only available on cd.
Cheers
Guy

PS whilst on the subject of LDS CDs there is also the Pedigree Resource File collection of CDs (vol 6 on DVD)(and online) which now runs to 6 volumes - 33 sets which in all contain 133 CDs and contains submitted family trees.
Guy

[ElaineMaul]

Yes, since 1990 no controlled extractions have been added to the IGI instead they are transcribed for the "new" Vital Records Index.
The controlled extractions may be filmed parish registers which are then transcribed, or they may be filmed bishop's transcripts or even third party compilations of transcripts.The records of the VRI do not go through the temple ordinances but are simply transcribed for the index.

The main difference between the IGI and the VRI is the IGI is an index of the ordinances of the LDS. I.E. it indexes the baptisms, Endowments and Sealings that are offered in the Church Temples of the LDS.

The two databases in effect compliment each other, there are some duplicated records but these are when patrons have submitted their own research to the IGI.
Cheers
Guy

Hi Guy,
This transcription sounds a monumental task! Where it was filmed parish registers, did the LDS church have hoards of volunteers carrying out the transcription? Or was it done some other way? Do you know what 'quality control' procedures they followed (if any!) in doing this? (I'm thinking here of all the mistakes that were found when the 1901 census first went on-line).
Although this is obvious to all you experts, this discussion is really bringing home the point that the IGI can only ever be a guide!
...... I need to get to the Hertfordshire records office ASAP :)

Elaine

[Guy Etchells]

Although this refers to the new digitising project rather than the controlled extractions an idea of the scale of things may be gained from reading
http://tinyurl.com/3y49x9

One point that must be remembered about the IGI is that if a person was called John Smith in the temple ordinance but his name in the parish register was William Smith, the IGI will correctly record that person as John Smith.
This is because the ordinance was carried for a person named John Smith.

It is such instances that confuse many people.
Cheers
Guy