Was record indexed wrong or was record incorrect
This is my first time asking a question, so please excuse me if I am not doing this right.
The question I have concerns the 1911 Vital Record Index record for Maye Fern Ball, LYPR-C31.
This record, when clicked on, indicates the name: Willie 2 Ball, instead of Maye Fern Ball. Maye was born on 23 April 1911, in Pike, Kentucky, and Willie Ball was her father.
There is no image available. I would like to ask: Is there a way to see if the original vital record was written with Maye’s name or her father Willie’s name?
Thank you.
Answers
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Now that all the microfilms have been digitized and so many of them are now available online, you can often find the original image even if it is not linked to the indexed record.
Start out with the source:
This just gives the location of Pike. Sometimes the actual source record has more information about the document it came from:
But in this case, there is no information under Document Information when you open that section. However, the citation is interesting. It says the author of the collection is "Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives."
So it is off to the catalog, searching for that author:
The record must have come from that fourth entry. Clicking on it shows:
Interesting! There is no image because there is no microfilm. It looks like this was not even a FamilySearch indexing project but one done by the Kentucky archives. Since this was a direct transfer of data from a CD-ROM to a FamilySearch historical database, the CD-ROM is almost certain to have the identical information as you find in the FamilySearch index. There is no mention here as to whether the CD-ROM has images. I would doubt it does.
I did check the microfilms for Pike, and they only go up to 1910.
This looks to be a situation where the only way to seen an image is to request a copy of the actual record from the vital records department in Kentucky. (Unless someone else on these boards has a suggestion.)
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Hi Gordon,
Thank you for your response. I appreciate you trying to investigate if the vital record was indexed incorrectly or if it was actually wrong. You are a very good investigator. I never have thought to look at the catalog to see if a record could be seen.
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When a child is not named when the birth is registered, often the form contains something akin to "child of Willie" in the given name box.
Since the record you found is only the birth index, not an indexing project of the birth certificates, I would suspect that may be the case here.
I checked Ancestry and MyHeritage. Both have the same index but no images of certificates.
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Thank you for replying to my question. It could be that the child was not named when the birth was registered. I would never have thought of this. I appreciate you checking the vital record on Ancestry and MyHeritage. You are a great researcher.
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TGPage Using the catalog is critical. As Gordon Collett indicated, there are now millions and millions of new images not yet correctly attached to their indexed record but are only identified as being in a collection. This is the case for Ancestry as well. When that collection number or title is available on a index record only, go to the FamilySearch catalog, look up that collection and spend the time. I have a very high rate of finding the image. Occasionally images are locked and only visible at a Family History Center, but that is more unusual.
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Hi Gail,
I have been working on my family’s ancestry for almost 3 years. Sometimes, when I click on an indexed record, it says to look through the pages to find the record. If it is important to me, I take the time to look through the pages, and then in the reason to attach, I note the page number of the record. The vital record I asked about said no image available. Hopefully, an image will become available one of these days.
There are so many records that I would like to one day attach to the family tree that are not on ancestry sites. Like, the marriage record of my parents, who were married in 1961. I have looked for the record online as an un-indexed record but have been unable to find it. I have a copy, and I talked with the courthouse in the county that my parents were married in to see if they had a record of the marriage. The response that I received was that they have the record, and that it is available to purchase. Ancestry that will perhaps be lost.
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There are probably far more paper records that have never been filmed by anyone than are online. What you can access on the web is just the tip of the iceberg of the information that is out there. Going directly to governments or archives or churches to view records or writing to them to have copies made and sent will always be necessary. And very few of them are going to do it for free. Both maintaining archives and having people take time from their regular jobs to search for a paper is expensive.
I suspect, looking at this catalog entry that, that this Kentucky database was made from paper records and that nothing was ever filmed. I would guess there are no images and never have been.
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Hi Gail,
Thanks for your reply. I am happy to see the records that are online. I plan to take a trip to the courthouse one day to see what other records I can find. The marriage record of my grandparents in online.
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TGPage In researching Kentucky birth certificates, 1) BCs began in 1911, and 2) it appears Kentucky has not released ANY to be publicly accessed. I believe your only option is to purchase it. Each state has their own laws about vital records. I found a collection of birth registration records for Kentucky, and it has no records in Pike County for 1911 or later. Not one. I suspect all births beginning with 1911 were recorded according to the new birth certificate laws.
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