Genealogy Chat

I have found a baptism entry for one of my ancestors on the IGI giving a definite date for the baptism: BUT - this is a submitted entry. I haven't found an extracted record that matches up to it. So - would you take this as probably being accurate? Also - is there any way to check with the submitter as to where the information came from? Thanks in advance. Barbara

Are there any extracted bps for that parish? I would be very wary if there are. Sometimes details of the submitter are given, at the bottom. Try rootsweb family trees and see if your relative's name appears. There will be an e-mail addy for the person who entered the data on there. I did this over the weekend for an elderly friend who had discovered a relative on IGI for Australia. There WAS a corresponding entry on Rootsweb - within an hour I had a reply back from Australia, telling me where the info about parentage had come from - the State burial index. Jay

Hello, On a scale of Accurate, Probable. Possible, Inaccurate, I would put is as Possible, but try to get confirmation from the Parish records concerned. Some of these submitted entries are just wishful thinking, but others are taken from genuine sources that may not have been included in the IGI listings.

Does the baptism give actual day, month year stuff or just a year? If day is given, then it would be possible someone has actually got off their butt and looked it up in a Records Office. Usually at the bottom of a submitted entry it will give a reference for the cd it has been added to. You could try emailing the LDS to find out if you can buy the cd (if its likely to have a lot of other stuff you want) or just order it up to look at at your local Mormons Family Research centre.

Jay and Hilary Thank you both for your quick responses. There are extracted records of the parish involved for the same time frame, which is why I was a bit doubtful in the first place. Jay - thank you for the suggestion regarding rootsweb family trees - I'll have a look on there as well as going to the records office to check the original parish records. Barbara

I will reiterate once again the advice given by the LDS Church to anyone using the IGI. Whether the entry is extracted or submitted, the record the entry comes from, should always be checked to verify that the entry has [a] been copied correctly and [b] input correctly.

Heather This one does give an actual day, month and year. Unlike the other 3 submitted entries for the same person which all say 'about with a year'. Thank you for the suggestion about the CD from the LDS. I do have a number of relatives from this general area. Thank you for your input. Barbara

Alan Thank you for the advice. The originals will be looked at, before too long I hope. Barbara

It may be all entries are from the same person. I have to say, when I first started this 3 years back, in my first flush of excitement I submitted a lot of pretty vague stuff to the LDS site. When I returned to correct it, to my horror I found you cant correct, you can only add the lot again. What I mean is, it may be this person put a circa date and since that time has followed up the information and found the exact date in parish registers. Good luck.

Heather Thank you again for that little bit of extra information. Barbara