NEW WAYS TO VERIFY AND RESEARCH
USING FAMILYSEARCH
©Copyright 2010 by Donald R. Snow This page last updated 2010-02-25.
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION TO CLASS
- Instructors are Donald R. and Diane M. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu and dms34@juno.com ) of Provo, Utah; St. George, Utah; and Nauvoo, Illinois.
- Spiritual thought
- These notes with active Internet links are posted on the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group website http://uvtagg.org under Class Outlines , Don's Listings . Many other class notes for family history are posted there, too.
- This class will discuss some new ways that the FamilySearch website can be used to help verify and find data for your family history.
RECORD SEARCH PILOT PROGRAM
- These are the results of the FamilySearch Indexing project -- Thanks to all you folks who are doing FamilySearch Indexing.
- Go to http://www.familysearch.org > Search Records > Record Search Pilot
- Already includes hundreds of databases including many censuses (US federal, US state, and foreign), vital records, church records, tax records, passenger lists, etc. >To see list of all records click on Browse Our Record Collections > Browse Collections
- Can search entire collection or just a particular one -- usually better to search broadly at first and only narrow (refine) the search if you get too many hits
- Example - Utah Death Certificates 1904-1956
- Click on Browse Our Record Collections, then click on the map on US & Canada, then select Utah Death Certificates
- Example -- enter the name Heber J. Grant and search -- gives 4 hits, 3 for him listed as father, one for his his own death certificate
- May need to refine the search by putting in state and/or year range
- Hovering the cursor over a name opens a pop-up screen with more data -- click on the name to open the indexed record for that person
- Click on the thumbnail of the image to see the full image -- can expand the image with the slider
- Has buttons to click to same the image of text and can copy text and images or do screenshots with a screen capture program, e.g. FastStone Capture
- By not entering too much info at first you may find other family members you didn't know about
- When searching for wives, remember that they are listed under married name at time of death
- Example - New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island) 1892-1924
- Includes links to images on Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island website
- Example - search for David O. McKay arriving in 1921 -- shows Apostle David O. McKay's arriving on the ship Cedric in New York with Hugh J. Cannon on their around-the-world trip
- More flexible search engine here on Record Search Pilot than on Ellis Island website, but better search engine still Steve Morse's "One Step Search Engine" on http://stevemorse.org/ellis2/ellisgold.html
- Details about the FamilySearch Indexing program are on http://www.familysearch.org under Index Records -- shows indexing projects completed and planned -- You can volunteer to help index!
FAMILYS HISTORY LIBRARY CATALOG AND DIGITIZED BOOKS
- Family History Library Catalog (FHLC) -- on http://www.familysearch.org/ under Library -- is now listing FH books that have been digitized and posted online in Brigham Young University's Family History Archives -- FHL is working with several libraries to digitize their out-of-copyright FH volumes
- For digitized books the FHLC has the words written in red: "To view a digital version of this book click here." -- clicking there takes you to a pdf (Portable Document Format) copy of the entire book posted on the BYU Harold B. Lee Library website
- Can read and/or download parts or all of the book
- Examples
- Complete collection of these digitized books is shown on http://www.familysearch.org/ under Search Records > Historical Books -- several thousand books so far -- -- see list of participating FH libraries on right side of screen
- Can search through all volumes at once or just on selected parts of the collection
- These are out-of-copyright FH volumes or the copyright holder must have given permission.
INTERNATIONAL GENEALOGICAL INDEX (IGI) AND BATCH NUMBER SEARCHES
- IGI is temple work done in the past, but file is not being updated now -- all temple work done at present (Feb 2010) is only going into New FamilySearch, not into the IGI
- IGI consists of about 1 billion ordinances with three kinds of records
- Extracted (indexed) records from films and books - usually accurate and about one-third of all entries in IGI
- Deceased LDS Members records - what the ward clerk had on record for the member
- Submitted by LDS members - sometimes not very accurate
- IGI is a SECONDARY SOURCE for genealogy data, but a PRIMARY SOURCE for temple work done for that name on that day in that temple -- be sure to check the original sources for IGI entries since they will probably have more information
- Types of searches you can do
- Individual searches
- Parent searches
- Batch number searches
- Batches are the groups of names that were indexed together; hundreds of thousands of batches in the IGI, each with thousands of names
- Batch numbers provide a very useful search tool for entire collections of extracted (indexed) records in a given British parish or a given New England town, for example
- Hugh Wallis' has collected the batch numbers for thousands of locations in the US and the UK -- see his website at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers.htm#Menu
- Price Associates website lists websites with batch numbers for many countries -- http://www.pricegen.com/resources/globalbatchnumbers.htm
- Find the batch number for the location of interest and use that in IGI Advanced Search -- must also enter the Region of the world, e.g. British Isles or North America
- With the batch number you can find everyone in a parish, or just those with a given surname in that parish, or even all those with a particular given name in that parish -- can't do these searches in the entire IGI since it is too large and would give too many hits
- For batch number entries the IGI shows the microfilm that was indexed for that batch -- check the original microfilm since it probably has much more information than was indexed (extracted)
- Very helpful research tool and can't be done in new FamilySearch since no indication of extracted (indexed) batches there
- Several ways to find the batch numbers -- see my notes "Searching the IGI and Using Batch Numbers" on http://uvtagg.org under Class Outlines > Don's Listings
- Example -- William Hudson and Ann Barrett and children - married 31 Mar 1828, Bingley, Yorkshire, England - IGI batches M007372, C007372, C007373
- Example -- Henry Stanworth and Mary Duerdin - married 15 Dec 1782, Burnley, Lanchashire, England - (IGI batch M005201)
ASSIGNMENT
- Go to FamilySearch > Search Records > Record Search Pilot and see if you can find information on some ancestor in some indexed database.
- Search the full-text books on FamilySearch > Search Records > Historical Books to find one that contains an ancestor's name and some information.
- Find the batch number for some location in your database (use Hugh Wallis' website, for example) and do a search with that batch number to find all people in the IGI in that location with that surname. This sometimes leads to finding other family members of your ancestors.
Return to Don's Class Listings page or to the home page of Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group .