Instructors are Elder and Sister Donald R. and Diane
M. Snow of the England London Mission, Hyde Park Family History Centre
(snowd@math.byu.edu , dms34@juno.com)
These notes with active Internet links are posted on the Utah Valley PAF Users Group web page http://uvpafug.org under Class Outlines Don's Class Listings page. They are linked on the Hyde Park Family History Centre webpage http://www.hydeparkfhc.org under Events. Many other
class notes and outlines for family history are on both sites also.
We will discuss the International Genealogical Index, what it is, and some
tips on searching it.
THE INTERNATIONAL
GENEALOGICAL INDEX (IGI)
The IGI on http://www.familysearch.org consists of about 1
billion names of deceased individuals, but many are duplicated so they only
represent at very most 500 million individuals.
Includes people from all over the world, not just LDS Church members,
nor were they all submitted by Church members.
Many are from the United States and the United Kingdom, since so
many LDS members have UK ancestors.
Names in the IGI come from three sources -- estimates are that
about one-third to one-half are from Record Class 1, i.e. extracted
records
Names extracted (indexed) from parish registers, etc.
Names of deceased LDS Church members
Names of ancestors sent in by LDS Church members, primarily
RECORD CLASS 1
Can usually count on the correctness of the data for these since
they come directly from the parish register or other record
At the bottom of the screen, to the right of the batch number, is
the microfilm number for the source of that entry.
Examine that microfilm to find more information about that
entry, since not everything was extracted into the IGI
Names in this Record Class have words like "Extracted record
of a microfilm..." in the source
If there are several entries for the same name, check to
see if one is an extracted record, since you can have
confidence in the accuracy of that one
The batch is the collection of names that were indexed in the
same group as this name.
The batch number is helpful to note -- Example: C means
Christening Record and M means Marriage Record
There are a few other letters used also -- the LDS Church has printed
a list of what these mean, but the majority are C and M.
See more details below on searching with batch numbers.
RECORD CLASS 2
Important category since that information is what the LDS Church
had as their information while the person was alive, e.g. the date
and place they were born
Only includes people who were LDS Church members while they were
alive, so only it's only after 1830
If there are several entries for such individuals, look
for one that says "From a Deceased LDS Member's record..."
Any others were sent in by descendants of those individual and may
or may not be accurate.
RECORD CLASS 3
These were sent in by LDS Church members with
no requirement of accuracy nor that they came from good
sources
Don't count on the data of these without verifying it -- use as a
guide to finding accurate data
Some were submitted as long ago as 1840 and there
is no way to contact the submitter nor learn what sources
they used -- submitter may not even be alive now
Films listed as sources for these are just of
the forms they filled out and don't contain the data sources they
used.
Doesn't require you to include an IGI Region -- sometimes helps since
you don't know the Region
Search the IGI itself -- gives more options, e.g.
Batch Number searches
General principle of all genealogy searches - start with the smallest
reasonable amount of information about the person, since anything you enter
that is slightly different than is in the database may cause the search to
miss it completely
Only add more search terms if you get too many
hits
If you get no hits, then even the small amount you entered is too much
or not right
Searches on the IGI
Individual search -- enter name, region, country,
if known, etc. -- add more data to narrow down the results
Parent search -- put parents names in the parents'
fields; requires full name of at least one parent
Marriage search -- include both spouses or one
spouse and surname of other or first name of other, etc.
Batch number searches -- see next paragraph
BATCH NUMBER SEARCHES
Batches in the IGI are the collections of
names indexed from particular parish or other records
Searching with a batch number will show just
those IGI entries indexed (extracted) from that parish -- very
helpful
Type the batch number into the box and select the
region, e.g. C040371 and British Isles
Searching in the batch
with no name will give everyone indexed in that batch -- all from that parish
Searching in the batch with just given name or
just surname will give all persons in that batch (parish) with that name
Helpful when you don't know or can't read the surname, but know the given
name
Batches in the IGI usually show the films they were
indexed from, so you can go directly to that film and see the entry
Original parish registers usually contain more
information than what was indexed in the IGI, e.g. father's
occupation or residence
The IGI is a compiled (secondary) source,
so the original parish registers usually contain more information
A few batches in the IGI do not show the source
film number, e.g. batch I010106, so you have to find it in other
ways
If you find one of
the few batch nmbers without source film shown, give a copy of the printout to
Elder Snow at the Hyde Park Family History Centre and he will try
to find the source film number for you.
Ways to find batch numbers
Not all parishes have been indexed for the IGI, so
not all parishes have batch numbers
If not in Hugh Wallis' list, look for that
parish in the FHLC
Check for "Church Records - Indexes" for
your parish -- Note: it's "Church Records - INDEXES", not just "Church Records"
Reason for checking for indexes is that if it
was extracted, then there was probably also a "printout" index made
Look there for something labelled batch number or else a
number with digits and hyphens or the word "printout"
Example - Hadleigh, Suffolk, England parish
register shows C-6318-1
Add leading 0's and remove the hyphens, so it
becomes a 6-digit number, i.e. C063181
Try that in the IGI and see if it's
a batch number for Hadleigh -- that one is
Also vary the last digit and the letter
and try things like C063180, C063182, C063183, M063180, M063182, and M063183
-- some of these may also be batch numbers for Hadleigh, but not necessarily
Some batch numbers in the FHLC are not
labelled batch numbers, nor do they have a C or M or other letter in front -
just experiment with those numbers
Can find lots of batch
numbers for the IGI by
Doing Keyword searches in the FHLC
for "batch St. Mary" or "printout Hadleigh" and check
the results - "printout" leads to some since the
parish had be indexed to make a computer printout
Can try using Google search for
"site:www.familysearch.org [name of parish]" (without the quote marks) since this brings
up pages from the FHLC and IGI with
that parish on the page
Check the possible batch numbers you get in these
ways to see if they really are batches for that parish
Using a Google search for the film number on the
Hyde Park FHC website shows if that film is at Hyde Park, but also
shows if it has been extracted
into the British Vital Records CD set, since the film numbers
extracted into that set are also shown on the website
If film number is less than 7 digits, also try
adding leading 0's to bring it up to 7 digits
WHAT TO DO WITH THE SEARCH RESULTS
Print them
Download as text file
Download as GEDCOM file -- can use this to put into any genealogy data
management program for further anaylsis
Can download GEDCOM's of an entire collection of a
surname or of a parish to analyze it separately
You get source information in the GEDCOM of the date you downloaded it
and from the IGI
Highlight a name in PAF, then hold down
the ALT key and press S, then F
PAF is written to go to the Internet,
open FamilySearch, enter the highlighted name, and show you the
IGI result
Use Refine the Search to narrow it down
If you are LDS, enter your user name and
password and then Alt-S-F will also show the ordinance data
Can tile the windows side-by-side with PAF in one
and FamilySearch in the other to see dates or places to narrow
the search -- can copy-and-paste from FamilySearch to PAF easily
this way
To tile the windows right click on an empty spot
on the blue bar at bottom of screen and select Tile Vertically
PAF Insight -- commercial program available from http://ohanasoftware.com/, helps in
searching since it tries so many different combinations since as name, given
names reversed, child of parents given, married to that spouse, etc. --
finds many more relevant entries than you can do by hand
For more details on these tools and/or others see my notes on Getting
Completed Ordinances into Your PAF Database on http://uvpafug.org
CONCLUSION
IGI is extremely helpful, especially if the name
has been extracted (indexed) from original records.
Batch number searches are very useful
Be sure use the IGI as a guide to the original records
and note from your results which can be counted on as
accurate.
ASSIGNMENT
Type in your own surname and try a search of All
Resources on it. You will probably get too many hits, so narrow the
search by typing in a first name, or region of the world, and/or other
restrictions. (You might be in some of the records, but you shouldn't be
in the IGI since that is only deceased records. Nor should you be in the
Social Security Death Index!) Then try just an IGI search on your
surname, so you can see the difference in search boxes between All Resources
and the IGI.
Find an IGI Batch Number and do a search on just
those records. (If you don't have one yourself, use IGI Batch Number
C040371, display it, and pick some given or surnames to
illustrate searches.)
See if you can find a Deceased Member's record for someone who joined the
LDS Church during their lifetime. (Use Annie Stafford, born 27 Apr 1867,
Yorkshire, England, if you can't find another one. She
is in batch H000035, if you need to use that to find
her.)