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Archiver > TMG > 2005-05 > 1115207318


From: Tom Clough <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Bibliography - IGI Entries
Date: Wed, 4 May 2005 04:48:38 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-DAV31DB2DBE5DCD214C7F4A41B7180@phx.gbl>


Very good points Stuart. I will be modifying my IGI source too. One other
idea I am kicking around is just adding "Citing XXX" in the CD. XXX could be
then be "Ordinance Record", "Membership Record" or other source document when
it is known. I'm not sure how I will proceed yet. Whatever I do, I want to
make it very clear that I only looked at the index and not the original
documents.

Thank you for the add information.

Tom


--- Stuart Armstrong <> wrote:

> Excellent, Tom!
>
> I would like to point out also that the IGI has two types of entries:
> Extracted records (extracted by teams from original records)
> Member submitted records (which are completely undocumented -- even the
> name of the submitter is not always given).
>
> Obviously there is a great difference in quality between the two types. The
> extracted records are extracted by people who don't necessarily have much
> experience, but they are checked by a supervisor who also reviews the same
> originals, or photocopies or images thereof. The experience of the extraction
> team varies. But at least these are somewhat reliable because they do come
> from original sources and require collaboration of two people before they are
> accepted.
>
> The second category, submitted records, is just some unknown and often
> un-named researcher's assertion of what he or she thinks is fact, without any
> documentation and often without any direct way of knowing whether the
> submitter knew anything at all, or actually researched it or just guessed. My
> own research of Mexican records is revealing that as many as two thirds of
> the member submitted Birth, Marriage, and Death dates found in the IGI for my
> wife's family are wrong!
>
> In my Master Source List, I have four different sources for the IGI.
> IGI: Extracted record.
> IGI: Membership record.
> IGI: Submitted record.
> IGI: Ordinance record.
>
> Membership records are another category, taken from church membership rolls
> of deceased persons. I do not know much about these, about how the member
> information found on FamilySearch.com is compiled, but I suspect their
> reliability is somewhere between that of extracted and submitted records.
> Church membership records are kept in Salt Lake, copies in the individual
> wards. The master records are updated whenever the Ward Clerk submits a
> correction. Having been a ward membership clerk myself, I know that it is
> often very difficult to obtain accurate information about a member, for a
> variety of reasons, so these records are not as accurate as one would like
> them to be.
>
> Ordinance records are only of interest to LDS researchers, except that in
> order for the ordinances to be performed there must be certain
> Birth/Christening, Marriage, or Death/Burial information submitted. This
> vital information then would have the same reliability as submitted records
> (meaning, not much), whereas the ordinance information itself comes from
> church documentation of temple ordinances and should be considered a primary
> source (primary for the ordinance events only, not for the auxiliary BMD
> information).
>
> Stuart Armstrong

Thomas Clough


http://www.tomclough.com

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