Family Search / IGI missing parishes

[Jonathan C]

I'm not sure which forum category is most appropriate to raise this question so hopefully someone will tell me if this isn't it.

Within the overall Forum there is an excellent starting page for each English County showing sources of resources - well done Peter & co. So far as I can see - although I haven't looked at every county - they each have an entry something like:

585,000 Cambridgeshire baptisms and marriages are included in the IGI at FamilySearch but not all parishes are included (you can see the coverage here).

The link takes you to the excellent and invaluable Archer Software name index to the former IGI batches, a resource I have used regularly for several years. This is a great means of selecting only the records for particular parishes, wildcard searches etc, but it does only list those parishes that are in what was called the IGI.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to find which parishes are NOT listed in the IGI within each county, i.e those that can, most probably, only be seen or searched at the relevant local records office (or just possibly on Find My Past et al)? I'm trying to find people in Cumberland, the Cambridgeshire / Suffolk / Essex border area, and also Devon and it would be incredibly useful to know what the online gaps are.

Maybe there's an easy answer to this one that I've missed, in which case I'd love to know what it is!

 

[peter]

The record office should have a list of parishes. Or if you're only interested in the local area use Parlor, or the FamilySearch map (Google '1851 jurisdictions').

 

[Jonathan C]

That's my point Peter - The Record Offices do have lists but how does one compare their list with the IGI / Family Search and see what is in the former and not the latter? I have waded through, for example, the Cambridgeshire Records Office list comparing it, one parish at a time, with the Family Search list (from Archer) - & both downloaded and saved as spreadsheets - but it's time consuming and I can't swear to the accuracy. There are only a handful of parishes and date ranges that do not tie up. Has anyone else ever done this and put it on-line? (For any and all counties, not just Cambridgeshire)

 

[Tim]

It's very easy to compare 2 spreadsheets, use function vlookup.

I can help more if you need more advice on using that function.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

As you also note the old IGI database is now deprecated and best avoided. All of those old datasets have been revisited and revamped into far better indexed datasets on the FamilySearch.org website.

The issue however is that some people still call the FamilySearch.org website the IGI which is misleading as that is only what one of their old datasets was called. Indeed any researcher these days that uses FamilySearch.org and sticks to using the out dated inaccurate and incomplete IGI database is crippling their searches and likely causing brick walls that shouldn't exist to appear.

The IGI is dead long live the FamilySearch.org revamped databases.

 

[Jonathan C]

1. Thanks Tim for your offer - VLookup had crossed my mind as I have a son who is an Excel whiz and uses it all the time. I by contrast am a dinosaur and have never got it to work. I'll bounce it off him and see if he can show me a way of using it in this context - but there isn't going to be a reliable column match across the two data sets so far as I can see. But it's a good idea - thanks - so I'll give it a go and if I get any joy will post

2. I should have been more precise Alexander and I'll probably not succeed here either! I mentioned the IGI because, so far as I'm aware, the codes that the Archer Software site shows for each parish, or rather each record set for each parish, are those originally used for the IGI. It and, as you say, the far better FamilySearch (which also uses those codes) should both of course only be guides to where one can go and look for the real records, but if either give information of a birth one is looking for then that of course is the original record you have to go and find - online or at the records office. But if there are no results in FamilySearch or the IGI or FindMyPast or Ancestry etc then could it be that the parish, or the dates within a parish, are not available anywhere on-line? And if that's the case, are there original records to see at a records office? (All this leaves aside mis-transcription and all the other pitfalls of relying on anyone elses work). There we are - probably no more helpful or clear.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Probably the most efficient approach to your issue would be to create a list of parishes that existed for each county. For England this would be best listed as Parish, Registration District, County. Then after you have a list of every parish allocate off against them the list of recordsets available eg:census years, BMDs etc for each one noting the periods covered. Then it becomes and excercise of filling in blanks.

If you create a file with a standardised format this could be used as the basis of a really helpful resource on the resources page on the forum. Forum users would be able to assist by filling in blanks. Over time you'd build up an excellent record of what records are available, that would be useful to many many people for years to come.

I appreciate its a large task. However as I see it the key is to design the initial data capture layout then others can assist to find the data and fill in the gaps. You could even get someone who has a particular county of interest being the person who looks after the data for that region as they would be more likely to regularly search that county and be a member of that counties local FHS, newsgroups, be in touch with other researchers of that county etc

 

[Jonathan C]

After your, Peter's and Tim's comments I must admit I've been thinking a long the same lines Alexander. It would seem there is a gap that needs filling. I'm not sure I'd include censuses to start with - the comparison of the holdings of parish birth, marriage and burial records would be a mammoth undertaking in itself, and an interesting challenge. Now if only I was retired...

 

[peter]

FamilySearch have started on a similar project on their wiki, for example here's the page for Stokenham in Devon. Unfortunately the information is already out of date because Stokenham is one of the Devon parishes which Findmypast added last month.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

There you go then. The fact that FamilySearch is a well respected site and they have done the legwork of creating a template on a wiki means that the basic info is already there. Particularly the names and descriptions. It is annoying though that the map link doesn't take you to the individual parish. This is a failing of their map URI.

Anyway the point is that since a major force in genealogy has done the legwork and provided the data in a wiki then anyone who registers can help contribute and update the pages with new information such as Peter suggests the addition of the FindMyPast data.

So for instance you could look at Findmypast press releases read up on what's new and update the wiki as a resource for others. It's a wiki so there really is no excuse for info being out of date it just lacks committed volunteers to update it.