IGI - advice and guidance please!

[Genevieve]

Further to a message a posted about accessing parish registers online which was kindly responded to by Peter Goodey, I am sitting here with a small sheaf of prints of 'Individual Records' from the IGI which may or may not relate to my attempt to trace my COOKE ancestors back beyong 1837.

I've not used IGI before. From what I have read previously it seems to come with more of a health warning than other secondary/tertiary/quartenaray(?) sources.

What I'd like views on is:

How strong is the health warning?

How complete is it in terms of coverage? e.g. I have found a family that I have reasons to suspect the individual whose birth/christening I am looking for belongs to but, he is not listed though siblings either side of the birth year I have for him are.

Aswell as providing verification (or otherwise of the IGI info), is there any additional information that can be obtained from the parish registers?

Any other hints/tips/warnings etc.

Many thanks for your help as I enter uncharted waters!

[Geoffers]

I've not used IGI before. From what I have read previously it seems to come with more of a health warning than other sources.
What I'd like views on is:How strong is the health warning?
It can be variable. The information from transcripts is reasonable though the dates are often inaccurate - interpretation of names is often difficult so I wouldn't be too harsh there. The information supplied by patrons/members (I forget the term they use) in my experience is sadly often nothing more than a work of fiction.


How complete is it in terms of coverage?
Coverage varies from county to county. I have found that for some parishes, not all entries in registers, ATs/BTs have been included in the IGI.

[As well as providing verification (or otherwise of the IGI info), is there any additional information that can be obtained from the parish registers?]

The IGI is a basic index which can be very helpful research aide. The parish registers can contain lots more information and should always be checked for the full detail.

Examples of the sort of information that can be found in registers is in the following thread
http://www.british-genealogy.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1591

Geoffers

[Rod Neep]

The health warning is very strong indeed. However, you will learn to spot the iffy ones. Anything that is extracted from a parish register is usually pretty good. It is always worth checking the original though, not only for confirmation, but for the additional information that may be contained.

See our own "help" pages here on British-genealogy.com (http://www.british-genealogy.com) and click on the link for "Parish Regsiters" to see what information was in the registers for different periods. It is pretty compreheensive, with examples.

Things to watch out for on the IGI are entries that:
a. are duplicated
b. have "ABT" (about) for a date
c. have "of xxxxx" for the parish

Those are downright guesses and almost always innacurate by the person who submitted the entry to the IGI.

If you have queries or doubts:
1. ask here and quote the example
2. always look at the original parish register and obtain a photocopy

Regards
Rod

[Peter Goodey]

On the Individual Record Screen you'll see an annotation along the lines of "Extracted birth or christening record for the locality listed in the record". This means it's from a systematic transcription from the source.

You can treat that as being as reliable as any transcription ever is (in my opinion).

If you click the link under "Source Call No." you'll get to a page which describes the actual source. It's wise to check this. If for example it's a bishop's transcript, the IGI entry will be a transcript of a transcript (more scope for errors!)

If the annotation is NOT "Extracted record..." eg if it says "Record submitted by a member of the LDS Church", well, let's just say it's what someone submitted with no indication of sources and no quality control. Make your own judgement how much credence to give those.

It's generally accepted good practice to check any transcription against the original (or if the source was a BT, against the PR itself). Depending on the period and local practice you may well find useful additional information quite apart from errors and omissions. Even bits which have been crossed out in the PR and don't make it to a transcription can provide useful clues.

Before starting to use the IGI, a useful resource is Hugh Wallis' IGI Batch Numbers

I've heard suggestions that it may not be totally up to date but nevertheless it is invaluable.

I don't know if that ramble was any help.

[Genevieve]

Before starting to use the IGI, a useful resource is Hugh Wallis' IGI Batch Numbers

I've heard suggestions that it may not be totally up to date but nevertheless it is invaluable.

I don't know if that ramble was any help.

Ah - so that was where you got the batch nos. from - very useful. As is your 'ramble'.

Thanks

[ChristineR]

It's probably useful to know that not all the persons in the Latter Day Saints holdings are indexed online. I didn't realise this until I looked at their online catalogue of films, etc. Whilst none of my Harwich RANDALLs show up in the IGI, the LDS do hold the filmed parish records for the Church Of England, Saint Nicholas - which it will be my pleasure to get to a look at today, after a 40 minute drive for a one hour viewing. :) My first trip to an Family History Centre.

Looking at the Parish registers reveals all sorts of information. I have an ancestor who's father was his mother's sister's husband - as noted in the margin complete with exclamation marks by the priest. The sisters both had children by this man baptised the same day.

Christine
Australia

[Guy Etchells]

Further to a message a posted about accessing parish registers online which was kindly responded to by Peter Goodey, I am sitting here with a small sheaf of prints of 'Individual Records' from the IGI which may or may not relate to my attempt to trace my COOKE ancestors back beyong 1837.

I've not used IGI before. From what I have read previously it seems to come with more of a health warning than other secondary/tertiary/quartenaray(?) sources.

What I'd like views on is:

How strong is the health warning?

How complete is it in terms of coverage? e.g. I have found a family that I have reasons to suspect the individual whose birth/christening I am looking for belongs to but, he is not listed though siblings either side of the birth year I have for him are.

Aswell as providing verification (or otherwise of the IGI info), is there any additional information that can be obtained from the parish registers?

Any other hints/tips/warnings etc.

Many thanks for your help as I enter uncharted waters!


I am surprised that nobody has mentioned what the IGI actually is, a grave ommission as without knowing the reason behind a source (any source) one cannot understand the limitations and strengths of that source.

The IGI is simply an index of the ordinances (baptism, sealing & endowment) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and when used as such is 100% accurate. It is not an index of parish registers even though genealogists use it as such.

This means it indexes events that happened in the Church temple recording the names & dates used in that ceremony only. This seems to cause much confusion amongst the genealogical community.

The IGI should be used as any other index, as a clue to the possible existance to a parish register entry, in the same way as the National Burial Register may be used as a clue to a possible entry in the burials register.
Cheers
Guy

[BeeE586]

This may or may not be true but it was told to me by a volunteer, who was a member of the Church, at the LDS centre at Grenoside north of Sheffield many years ago. I have no way of checking the accuracy of the statement.

"During the second World War and subsequent conflicts, many church members in the US were conscientious objectors and 'work' was found for some of them indexing baptisms and marriages world wide, not only UK records. They worked from 'copies', never saw the originals since they never left the US, had little interest in what they were doing but it was better than having to fight."

The man who told me was possibly biased since he too had been a CO but had worked in military hospitals.

The IGI, like any other index, is a tool to be used with care and this can never be stressed too much. If any posters have the information it might be interesting to know how reliable the records are for countries overseas. If you check the address for 'Source of Information' it is invariably in the US and I have written to several but never yet had a reply.

:) -- Eileen

[Cornish Maid]

Early on in my research I wandered onto the IGI and from there to the Pedigrees. I was utterly entranced to find a family which looked like mine, complete with dates, baptismal places etc, I was thrilled and wrote everything down. I then found another Subscriber, who had ALMOST the same family, hm, a few differences to check, perhaps...another one..another one..till I finished up with a poor woman who had 44 children, married her own son before he was born. I then emailed all the five subscribers. This was about three years ago - I am still awaiting a reply from any of them.


As for the IGI, I frequently use my local Family History Centre and was told by the Manager that when she is transcribing local registers, she never transcribes illegitimate children or couples who married and produced a child in less than nine-and-a-half months. When I asked her why not, she said that "some people do not wish other people to know their family secrets".

I was a bit taken aback by this and hope that not many other transcribers feel the same! However, what we must remember is that the IGI is the property and work of the Mormon Church, and as we are "playing with their ball" we have no option but to put up with this if we want to use it.

Cornish Maid

[Rod Neep]

The IGI is NOT an index of parish registers. It is not an index of marriages or baptisms or births.


It is a list of people who have been baptised (posthumously), into the LDS faith, (and even if they have been baptised into other faiths of their own) - or sealed in marriage for eternity by them. (Even if they are dead, separated or divorced).
As such, it is a totally accurate set of records. That is why errors cannot be corrected, or duplicates removed.

[ChristineR]

Poor Great Grand-dad Randall, I bet he turned over in his grave when that ceremony was performed! So, that's why my Harwich lot aren't there - they haven't been rebaptized.

So, Rod, is this process still going on? I had always wrongly assumed that they collected all this information so they could induct people who had no evidence of belonging to another faith. :(

Christine
Australia

[Guy Etchells]

Poor Great Grand-dad Randall, I bet he turned over in his grave when that ceremony was performed! So, that's why my Harwich lot aren't there - they haven't been rebaptized.

So, Rod, is this process still going on? I had always wrongly assumed that they collected all this information so they could induct people who had no evidence of belonging to another faith. :(

Christine
Australia

Actually no.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that life goes on after death, they therefore offer the odinances and the decision whether to accept them or not is up to the "dead" person.

Nothing is forced on the "deceased" person but a choice is given that may not have been possible when that person was "alive".

I am not of the LDS faith but it seems a very christian attitude to me to offer those who had not been offered the chance of salvation whilst on earth to now be offered a second chance.
Certainly more christian than those who believe that if the correct choice is not taken on earth the person is condemed to eternal damnation.

Even today Christianity has not penetrated to all parts of the earth so it seems there are many today still condemned no matter how they live their lives, surely the dead are in the best position to make the most accurate judgement.

I hope the above has not offended anyone, that was not my intention, apologies if it has.
Cheers
Guy

[Peter Goodey]

"I hope the above has not offended anyone"

I, and many others, could write several pages refuting everything you just wrote.

But then which one of us would get rapped over the knuckles for being off-topic?

You really shouldn't post such provocative stuff unless you're prepared to debate it and this isn't the place to do it.

[Rod Neep]

Since the IGI is something that is used by just about all genealogists, then it could hardly be said to be off topic, and therefore I see no reason why it, or the reasons for its existence, should not be a topic for discussion here.

Admittedly, there would always be two or three different points of view, but as long as any discussion remained civil, and enlightening (!) then please do go ahead and state your point of view in debate. It would surely be a shame if the discussion was one sided, and based on lack of information.

Regards
Rod

[Genevieve]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my original post. I've learned quite a bit and found some potential ancestors with pointers to where to go looking for verification/more information which is great and will no doubt result in one or two more specific postings in the near future.

I knew that the reason for the LDS churches interest in genealogy was to do with offering salvation posthumously but for some reason I thought members did this for their own ancestors rather than trawling records for people to offer baptism to 'willy nilly'.


I am not of the LDS faith but it seems a very christian attitude to me to offer those who had not been offered the chance of salvation whilst on earth to now be offered a second chance.
Certainly more christian than those who believe that if the correct choice is not taken on earth the person is condemed to eternal damnation.

Even today Christianity has not penetrated to all parts of the earth so it seems there are many today still condemned no matter how they live their lives, surely the dead are in the best position to make the most accurate judgement.

I have no axe to grind on the religious front. But, I have been party to many debates (mostly in my student days) around the issue of 'the only way to be saved is to accept Jesus' and the fact that not all people today, or in the past, may get the opportunity to do so. I think the usual answer was that if one had genuinely not heard the message then one would be judged on one's life.

This almost inevitably leads to the rather perverse sounding argument that a Christian is therefore better off keeping quiet. Which of course depends on whether someone has lived a 'good enough' life or not. That one can keep a bunch of students with nothing better to do (and I include myself there) going for hours - at the end of which time no-one has moved their position one iota! Oh for the days when I had time for such diversions...

Well, all I'd add is that being involved in the genealogy game, I'd rather my fate didn't hang on the chance of someone in the future tracing me and getting me 'done' retrospectively!!

Thanks again to all...

[Wirral]

Although I have found the IGI useful for some ancestors, the coverage for Liverpool is very patchy. Both the Roman Catholic Church & the Church in Wales apparently did not give permission for many of their records to be filmed. Liverpool has a large Catholic population (both immigrant Irish catholics and "old Catholics" from Lancashire & a large Welsh population. And many of my ancestors were either Welsh or Catholic!

[ChristineR]

Actually no.
...snip.....
Nothing is forced on the "deceased" person but a choice is given that may not have been possible when that person was "alive".... snip.... Cheers
Guy

Thanks Guy,
that makes perfect sense to me, appreciate your reply.
Christine
Australia

[ChristineR]

Although I have found the IGI useful for some ancestors, the coverage for Liverpool is very patchy. Both the Roman Catholic Church & the Church in Wales apparently did not give permission for many of their records to be filmed. Liverpool has a large Catholic population (both immigrant Irish catholics and "old Catholics" from Lancashire & a large Welsh population. And many of my ancestors were either Welsh or Catholic!

Hi Wirral, have you checked the online LDS catalogue? They have a lot of filmed registers, the people on them do not show up in the IGI. I just had a quick look, I was amazed at the number of records that show up for Liverpool - including some Catholic churches.
Christine
Australia

[Peter Goodey]

"It would surely be a shame if the discussion was one sided, and based on lack of information."

I'll try to stick to those ground rules.

Guy is arguing on the basis of several unproven premises.

Leaving on one side his underlying assumptions about theism, Christianity and the existence of an "after-life", his basic premise is that Mormonism is a perfectly valid branch of Christianity.

This is, to say the very least, debatable. To the best of my knowledge, the mainstream churches do not accept Mormonism as part of Christianity. Even a non-believer such as myself can see several theological reasons for Mormonism being distinct from Christianity, for example the Mormon concept of the nature of God and of Jesus seem decidedly non-Christian.

Of course, the Mormons argue strongly that they are or should be treated as Christian. There are probably compelling political reasons for this - with the rise of the neo-cons and the Christian Right in the United States, their leaders fear political marginalisation. But then the Mormons have a history of amending their doctrines for various pragmatic reasons - particularly where there’s money involved.

An example of this is the "revelation from God" that they should downplay the inherent racialism in their theology (which of course was originally laid down by God). Presumably God had spotted that civil rights legislation in the US was likely to lead to financial disadvantages for an overtly racist outfit.

As for Guy’s sympathetic justification for posthumous baptism, this is simply repeating the Mormon line issued for public consumption. What actually goes on in Mormon temples is a closely kept secret - not even all Mormons are admitted to their temples; the public certainly are not.

[Wirral]

Hi christine
Thanks for that tip. Where is the catalogue? I'll look on the LDS site. Must confess now that I have other means of accessing the records. I live only 15mins from Liverpool central library! Although some of the catholic churches still hold their own records, most older ones are at the library. Am planning to visit this week, so if anyone wants lookups, let me know.

[Guy Etchells]

True, practically ever premise about Christianity is unproven, there is no proof that Jesus Christ even existed but it is widely accepted as fact, not one book of the New Testament was written during the time of his life, and it is doubtful whether any were written during the life of any person who could have known him when alive.
It is because these “facts” are unproven that faith is required; if the “facts” were proven there would be no need for faith

However my use of the word christian (note the small c) was not whether the LDS church was accepted by the mainstream religions but based on what I perceive as christian values, helping others, sharing, treating others as one would be expected to be treated etc.
I would however say that any person who proclaims a belief in Jesus Christ as a saviour must by definition be Christian.

I would also note I did not assume an after life but stated the LDS did, as do many other religions; if there is no life after death then none of this matters as it would not be possible for the deceased to accept the ordinance, and as far as I am aware, other religions do not accept baptism after death.

Yes the LDS were racist, as were practically all religions, but have like other religions evolved over time accepting societies changing attitudes; these things do however take time in all such organisations. It should be noted that there are now black members amongst the Mormon priesthood, it should also be noted that Joseph Smith (founding prophet) made no restrictions to the priesthood based on colour.
This came in in the 1840s when such things were socially acceptable.
I therefore cannot see the relevance of this to my posting.

Obviously I base my thoughts about the LDS on published facts, as you say the public are not allowed in the Church temples but there is no reason to disbelieve the reasons given.
I have never read of any proof of any other reason for the Church ordinances therefore until I have justification to doubt there published reasons I will accept them.
Cheers
Guy

[ChristineR]

Hi christine
Thanks for that tip. Where is the catalogue? I'll look on the LDS site. Must confess now that I have other means of accessing the records. I live only 15mins from Liverpool central library! Although some of the catholic churches still hold their own records, most older ones are at the library. Am planning to visit this week, so if anyone wants lookups, let me know.

this will take you right there. Some of these records (if not all) are probably
all in your library. :)

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp

[Wirral]

Hi Christine
Although I often use the Search section of the LDS site, I had not looked at the Library.
Thanks for the link.