Genealogy Chat

Be very wary of the habit of guessing a baptism was 25 years before a marriage. I have an ancestor who married for the third time at about 60. The submitter has found this marriage and estimated his age from it. Unfortunately it would have made him 8 when he had my great grandmother. Another relative married a young girl at sixty-eight after his wife died and had four children. It was only when I found an old transcription of the family sarcophogas that I realised I was not looking for two missing generations. I also have a family that belonged to a nonconformist sect which baptised children at 7. Having said that you can sometimes see if there is a lot of interest in your family it might be worth looking on one world tree. If you submit a gedcom they will give you matching information about your ancestors. You can delete the gedcom afterwards if you wish. I have never managed to contact anyone from an IGI submitted record but you might have more luck. Anne

I would mention that anyone can submit their tree - I did about a year ago, mainly as I was curious to see how easy it was. It is there for all to see as Pedigree Resource File, warts and error and all. You can even obtain a copy on CD rom.

Michelle But if you do find a tree with your family on it, please check everything, every fact, for yourself, remembering that Mormons do not necessarily research in the same way that a genealogist would! A general rule of thumb - if the tree consists mainly of entries such as John Smith married Mary Bloggs ABOUT 1821 - then forget it, they don't know, they are just guessing. I am sure that there ARE some carefully researched trees on there - the problem comes in deciding which ones they are! OC

it is very possible that the person who put the info on there is a relative of your so i would suggest you try to contact them they may well have all your family tree done for you good luck steve

I think you'll find the stuff added by members is when someone joins the Mormons they have to submit their ancestry so that the relatives can be added to the Church at the same time or something like that. I think it is do with 'baptism' so that they will all be reunited in the afterlife. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

I think the data comes from two main sources. Firstly, over many years members of the Mormon church have transcribed parish records (not usually burials, unfortunately). These are the entries which say something like 'extracted from local records' at the bottom. They are about as reliable as any transcription but you may find more details if you examine the actual records yourself. Secondly there are the 'records submitted by a member ...' These have been added to the database piecemeal by (I think) almost anyone - sometimes several times over it seems. They are the results of individual research and are definately not to be relied on! Some of them may well be accurate but many others live in the realms of fantasy! Sometimes if you click on the bits at the bottom of a submitted record you can get to find out who sent them in, but I have found this is not usually the case. Good luck with trying! Anne

Hi, Just a sort of general question really I would like to know a bit more about familysearch.org. Where did the information came from? Its just thats there is a lot about my family on there and I was wondering who put it on there and if I could get in contact with them. Thanks, Michelle