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
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Thread: familysearch.org
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08-01-2006, 12:45 AM #1carrieGuest
familysearch
Last edited by Guest; 22-08-2007 at 5:36 AM.
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08-01-2006, 9:51 AM #2GeoffersGuest
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....
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08-01-2006, 9:52 AM #3GeoffersGuest
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.
GeoffersLast edited by Guest; 19-08-2007 at 8:55 PM.
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08-01-2006, 12:18 PM #4Guy EtchellsGuestOriginally Posted by Geoffers
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
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08-01-2006, 1:04 PM #5GeoffersGuestOriginally Posted by Guy Etchells
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
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08-01-2006, 4:04 PM #6
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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.
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
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08-01-2006, 6:13 PM #7kazrbutlerGuest
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
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08-01-2006, 9:11 PM #8carrieGuest
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
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08-01-2006, 9:24 PM #9MythologyGuest
"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.
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08-01-2006, 9:35 PM #10carrieGuest
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
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