Issue 26.12
Part 1
The International Genealogical Index (IGI) is a computer file created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was first published in 1973 and continued to grow through December 2008. It contains several hundred million entries, each recording one event, such as a birth, baptism (christening), marriage, death or even burial.
Information in the IGI came from two sources. Some of the entries in the IGI were indexed (extracted) by the genealogical community from collections of vital and church records. Indexed records are valuable sources of primary information because they came from original records. Unfortunately, attempts to prevent duplication resulted in the exclusion of some indexed records.
The other information in the IGI was contributed by members of the Church about their ancestors. The quality of this information varies. Duplicate entries and inconsistent information are common because some of this came from “family records” or “personal knowledge of someone” and may not have been verified with primary source information.
Over the years, access to the IGI has advanced with technology. First it was available on microfiche, the IGI was subsequently available on compact disc and later as a collection on the Internet when FamilySearch.org went online in 1999.
Today, FamilySearch publishes hundreds of collections of vital and church records for many locations throughout the world. Indexed entries from the IGI are treated consistently with other indexed records, published by country or state. Performing a regular search on FamilySearch.org will search both IGI indexed records along with more recently indexed records. To search just the entries from the IGI, select the “International Genealogical Index (IGI) collection from the list of historical record collections at www.familysearch.org. From the collection page you may choose to search either community indexed entries or community contributed entries.
The IGI is a finding aid. Always check original sources. Entries often do not contain all the information in the original records, such a death dates or names of additional relatives. Sometimes only portions of parish records or other sources were indexed. When I first began searching I found that in Glengarry County, Ontario, about 30 years of the St. Raphael’s Roman Catholic Church had been extracted or indexed even though that Church was in existence from 1804 until it burned down in 1970. That left a lot of records that were not indexed that still held very valuable information for my family.
Continued next week.
For more information, contact Shanna Jones (435)628-4900 or shannasjones@msn.com.