How reliable is IGI?

[Olde Crone Holden]

Ditto, Margaret.

I recently discovered that some research my brother did was wrong - because we didn't buy the cert! I have re-done that part of the tree.

I also had to do a very large chunk again some years ago because I didn't buy one certificate. In my own defence (!) only the 1861 census was available to me at that time, and this great grandmother was born after that.

Like you, 200 years research down the pan, but why not? She wasn't my biological great grandmother so why on earth have the wrong information on my tree, even if it did cost me endless hours of work and running around.

OC

[Penelope]

I'm maybe unusual in that I still live in the parish where my ancestors go back to 1700 and next parishes along they go back til records start - and the originals are kept about 6 miles from me house so for me the IGI is just something I use to try and make connections, after the fact of looking in the parish records.;) But for most folk they live maybe further away or have ancestors spread over many counties - my husband has - and the IGI is invaluable to them. But as I say, when I got down to looking at originals I was surprised how accurate the coverage for this area is. I thought it would be full of errors. Until you see originals though you can't appreciate about entire pages being illegible etc - the biggest problem are the omissions.

I should add that another area is that they can;t read the secretary script as a rule, so they may get to 1640 if you're lucky. Yet when you look at some of these parish registers, sometimes the clerks have perfectly legible hands at a much earlier date than you'd expect - yet the IGI hasn't got back so far and there's no reason why not, really. I know of one parish register from round here where the clerk in the 1630s and 40s had such 'modern' handwriting, it was like reading someone's shopping list from last week. I don't know whether some transcribers had an arbitrary cut off date or what?

Re. other folk's trees - I never 'correct' them. If they look at my tree on GR they can see I have got info from original sources and various documents, not just parish registers - and if they're doing the same research from the other end of the country, they're welcome to use mine, or not. But I don't see myself as being in the business of correcting anyone's errors - and if someone corrects me on something I'm really grateful they spotted it!

But no, if I notice someone else's tree is wildly out I don't even point it out to them - I assume they will compare with mine, spot what my sources are, and change if they want to. It's no skin off my nose if they don't though!

IGI has its limitations - you get far more info from a good Dade entry, or a will, or property deeds. But even parish records you must approach with caution.

[Kit]

I don't think you can have a failsafe blanket way of telling people they have wrong info. Just be polite and tell them. Sometimes I just say where did you get you info as I have something different.

[Janet]

Question: How reliable is the IGI?

For some counties it is very good and for Scotland it is not only good but very reasonably accurate, as I found out when I came to check all the IGI info I had from the parish registers at Dunfermline Library. However, the IGI has only ever been a guide to finding ancestors, and was never meant to be a genealogical guide for anybody. As has already been pointed out it was done by the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints for their own sealings into their own religion, so there are bound to be many ommissions and mistakes and double entries. It happens to be a bonus for us, that we can use it as a genealogical aid.

Northampton is not a good advertisement for the IGI as if you look really hard at the Northants IGI you will find many from Peterborough, Wellingborough, Irtlingborough, Irchester which has been mispelt as Ircheston and Chester and a sprinkle from Kings Cliffe, Raunds, Caistor and one or two others, but if you notice there is hardly anyone from all the small villages and hamlets which abound in Northants, places like Deene, Finedon, Brigstock, Broughton, Achurch and so on, which is why I have never found the IGI of much use to me for Northamptonshire. Every small village and hamlet in Northants had its church and in some cases two. Even the possible Caistor records I found on the IGI were wrong, according to the parish registers at Northants CRO.

The only real answer to this is to use the IGI as a guide ONLY, and then as soon as you can, check out information gleaned from the IGI, either by a visit to the CRO concerned, or join a Family History society for the area of your own interest and purchase their Parish CD's or books or approach the CRO to see if they will have some CD's/Fiche which they can sell you, and then always check out "tree" against other Poor Law Docs/Wills/Marriage Licences which will at present need a visit to the CRO, as most of these are NOT online. I belong to 5 Family History Societies, one Northants Record Society and two Irish Societies and have learnt so much from belonging.

I don't come up against many people researching my tree so have only ever suggested to one person he had the totally wrong tree attached to mine as I had purchased the Marriage Cert which he had not done and the Marriage Cert had shown a different Elizabeth to the one he was claiming. That was a mistake made from the 1901 Census on his part. Two Elizabeth born same year, same place but different surnames. He was fine when I pointed it out.

Janet

[KiteRunner]

I do find the IGI very useful even for Nottinghamshire although I live so near to the archives - because you can find the date of an entry in seconds by using the IGI and then it saves the bother of looking through pages and pages of the PR's - when you go to the archives you know what date to look at straight away.

[Phoenix]

My major counties of interest are Norfolk & Devon.

So far as I am aware, there are NO original extracted entries for those counties. EVERYTHING I have found to date comes from transcripts.

But it does at least give me a starting point. I have entries with the wrong year - because of the calendar. Entries with the wrong parish - because several parishes were listed on the same microfilm etc etc. But by dint of following everything up and tracking it down to its source I have discovered a great deal more than I would have done without access to any indexes, especially since Norfolk has over 700 parishes.

[Penelope]

I wonder why Yorkshire gets such good coverage? I've noticed Genuki is good for this county, too. I didn't understand how it worked for ages and had a shock when I went to look for summat in another county, to see how little info there was there. Just the luck of the draw. My husband (who's from Down South) says that he reckons when they came over to sit in churches and transcribe, they fancied spending more time in the pretty touristy places... A while back, I had an interesting conversation on another forum (not genealogy related oddly) with someone whose father was instrumental in setting up the IGI. If I can find that some time, I will post what he told me about how it was done.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Penelope

Lancashire too! Also, Lancashire has more detail in their church registers. I kept getting annoyed with people who said "You won't find the mother's maiden name in a church register before 1837" because I almost always found mine, in Lancashire.

Got a shock when I started to research in other counties!

OC

[kylejustin]

Penelope

Lancashire too! Also, Lancashire has more detail in their church registers. I kept getting annoyed with people who said "You won't find the mother's maiden name in a church register before 1837" because I almost always found mine, in Lancashire.

Got a shock when I started to research in other counties!

OC

really? i cant find the maiden name for the 1820's in mine!!

[KiteRunner]

Some of the Lancashire ones I've been looking at for OH's tree don't even give the mother's first name, not even for illegitimate children!

[Olde Crone Holden]

Well, yes, I've had that scenario too, Kate!

I have also seen marriages, admittedly very early, where the Vicar does not record the bride's name, lol.

OC

[kylejustin]

i've got a marriage in the early 1600's, that had the groom marrying elizabeth.
no surname for the bride!!

[Uncle John]

Just goes to prove that wives are mere chattels
*exits smartly from thread*

[Phoenix]

Not only women, UJ. What about: buried, a serving man of John Smith?

[WendyPusey]

I've just transcribed some early marriages and several of them where just

Fred Bloggs and Mary his wife

No other details just date. Very helpful.

[Canadian Cousin]

My major counties of interest are Norfolk & Devon.

So far as I am aware, there are NO original extracted entries for those counties.

Hi Phoenix,

I have no idea about Norfolk, but I've had reasonable success with Devon parish extractions on the IGI - see the listings on Hugh Wallis' website. I just checked ADAM/ADAMS baptisms in Malborough (1558-1837) - having seen this in your signature - and there are some 442 for this name alone!

We're also lucky in that there's excellent coverage of Devon in GENUKI.

Tim

[Little Nell]

Phoenix

Isn't this extracted?

MARY GREY
Birth: 30 APR 1859 Christening 17 APR 1864 Hardley, Norfolk
Mother: ELIZABETH GREY
Messages: Extracted birth or christening record for the locality listed in the record.
Batch # CO13212

[Little Nell]

I've found lots of Norfolk baptisms and marriages on IGI - though its very patchy about which parishes it includes. The ones I've been able to check with the microfilmed records in Norwich have all been accurate.

[Phoenix]

Hi Phoenix,

I have no idea about Norfolk, but I've had reasonable success with Devon parish extractions on the IGI - see the listings on Hugh Wallis' website. I just checked ADAM/ADAMS baptisms in Malborough (1558-1837) - having seen this in your signature - and there are some 442 for this name alone!

We're also lucky in that there's excellent coverage of Devon in GENUKI.

Tim

Tim I once spent a fortune getting ALL the IGI print outs for Adams in Devon. (And some 20 years on, I still haven't sorted all my Adams out!) You are right, there are masses for Malborough, but they don't come from the original registers. Some very hard working transcribers did a lot of work on the Devon registers - at a time, I imagine, when they were still in the parishes. The collection is housed in the West Country Studies Library in Exeter. It is those transcripts which have been used for the IGI.

[Phoenix]

Phoenix

Isn't this extracted?

MARY GREY
Birth: 30 APR 1859 Christening 17 APR 1864 Hardley, Norfolk
Mother: ELIZABETH GREY
Messages: Extracted birth or christening record for the locality listed in the record.
Batch # CO13212

Nell, if you check the catalogue, none of those records are transcribed directly from parish registers, they are all from someone else's trancripts. Probably extremely accurate transcripts, but the Mormons have not done the indexing themselves.