Family Search and the Amateur Genealogist
Author: Nick Thorne
I have been on a family search quest for several years now. Some of the foremost websites that I have used in this time include the familysearch.org, run by the Latter Day Saints and often referred to as LDS; Ancestry, operated by the Generations Network; The Genealogist.co.uk; Genes Reunited and Findmypast.com.
FamilySesarch, however, is one of the biggest genealogy organizations in the world and as such is an important on-line tool for any family historian. Countless millions of us will search the records, resources, and services of this website to learn more about our family history each year. For more than a century the people behind it have been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide. Today, the users of the site are able to freely access the database, including the International Genealogical Index as well as church member contributed material, on-line at FamilySearch.org, or through over 4,500 family history centres in 70 countries.
The website is run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sometimes referred to simply as the Mormon Church. Their commitment to helping people make a connection with their ancestors comes from their belief that families are meant to be central to our lives and that family relationships are intended to continue into the after life. From this they therefore believe that all family members including those living, past, and those from the future, share an enduring bond which stretches across the generations.
Their website does not require you to share their beliefs at all, but is open to all of us to use what ever our creed, or culture is. It is a very useful resource for anyone engaged in the detective work involved in tracing one's family tree.
-The International Genealogical Index and Hugh Wallis.
Once you have keyed in your ancestor's name into the search box you will be accessing a compilation of entries from baptism and marriage registers drawn from parishes and their equivalent from all over the world. Although it is a site run from the USA, for those of us with UK roots it still very relevant as it represents us well with index records. Some English counties in particular having excellent coverage.
The website, however, is not perfect as there are issues with the manner in which you can search it's data. One of which is it is not always simple to find your ancestors even when they are there to be found in the IGI - which, of course, is not always the case. If you fail to locate them easily this is probably down to the fact that the website's search-engine excludes searching by last name only, except where you are looking within a single batch of records at a time or, across all of the UK! You will probably understand that a search for a last name across the whole of England is a very tall order indeed. Remember it is not even a search of a single county, let alone a town that we are talking about here. If you have a rare name then perhaps it might be OK to do, but if you are looking for a Smith or a Jones then you are asking the impossible.
I have learnt that there is a way around this problem. It is to use a really handy website set up by an enthusiast to aid the family history researcher find their way around the FamilySearch site. What is more, it helps us know what registers are available on the IGI. The secret weapon to crack open the Family Search site is the website maintained by Hugh Wallis: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers.htm
The possible ranges he allows you to access are the Births/Christenings and Marriages for the British Isles, Canada and the USA. I really cannot recommend this tool highly enough to you. With Hugh Wallis' site you can select a geographic location, see the various churches and chapels for that city, town, or village and then, by keying in the last name of your forbear, it will utilise the search engine on FamilySearch to enable you to easily look at all the batches for that lastname in the geographic area that you are researching.
-Some Issues With the IGI.
I would advise you to take note of the following, when doing your research
- the International Genealogical Index:- is incomplete - and this applies not only on a parish by parish basis, but to within parishes as well where gaps may also be found
- is compiled from several different types of record including by members of the church supplying information that can be inaccurate and not only from the original parish register
- has countless mistakes due to problems with interpreting handwriting and the fore mentioned member submitted entries
- does not, except for a few cases, cover burials;
-is only an index and as such should not be considered a substitute for looking at the original record.
A year or two back, as I attempted to get back one more generation from 1841, or the point where the census records on line had stopped, I found I was having to turn to the Parish Records. For my Scottish line I was able to use the easily accessed old parish records (OPR) on Scotlandspeople.gov.uk website, but for my English line the lack of scanned records meant the challenge of learning how to break into this area of family history research was a fascinating test for me.
The FamilySearch website, I found, is a useful way of finding ancestors but has its flaws. By using the specialist search provided by Hugh Wallis you, like me, may be able to access records of your ancestors that otherwise you would not be able to find. Once you have located them on the IGI, however, you should endeavour to go to the main source of the original material at the relevant archive or County Record office and not assume that everything you read on a website, including the LDS site, is a hundred percent correct!