Why are records missing from the Scotland Births & Baptisms index
I am finding that records that I expect should be in the Scotland Births & Baptisms index are not there. My specific example are the children of William Ure (PID LHLK-B5D) and Christian Gray (PID KZK2-J2C).
Searching the Births & Baptism index
Returns one record (search criteria father William Ure; mother - Christian Gray
Searching ScotlandsPeople
Rreturns 6 records (search criteria first parent name - William Ure; 2nd parent name - Christian Gray
Searching Find My Past
Returns 7 records. 3 records for Christian Ure (the first 2 on the list appear to be from FamilySearch! William is missing from this but examination of the actual OPR film image shows that an additional baptism was inserted between the parents names which may have confused the issue. William can be found in Find My Past using a more specific search.
I wanted to search the IGI but the records index by the Church and those created by user submissions were split in 2020. Searching the revised IGI returned the same results as searching the Scotland Births & Baptisms index -
Searching the user submitted information returned all the names but also duplicates
Finally, searching old microfiche at the local Family Search Centre I found all 6 baptisms on fiche 6025727 (Stirlingshire births and baptisms sorted by firstname) and 6025758 (same - sorted by surname). Both of these fiche stated the batch number as C114852 (Larbert baptisms 1663 to 1820) indexed by the Church.
My understanding is that ALL the records that were produced by the Church (ie "C" batch numbers) in the original IGI were transferred to the Births & Baptisms index - so where are they now. These are not the only records missing in the index. This is just one example.
My supposition is that inappropriate merging of records in Family Tree is causing index information to be impacted, which if true may be a major issue with the content of many indexes and not just the Scottish Births & Baptisms that I have used as an example. I certainly hope that I am wrong in my supposition. Can anyone provide any assistance in this issue.
Thanks in advance.
Best Answer
-
I am not connected with FamilySearch
As this is a Legacy database, as mentioned by genthusiast above, I suspect/am sure there will be no interest by FamilySearch in this issue, even though you may have a valid concern.
0
Answers
-
Those fiches are listed in the catalog. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/498324
I know that all microFILMs have been digitized, but microfiches were not completed at the same time (2021). It's possible that they are not yet in digital format or there may be a clause in the contract that keeps FamilySearch from presenting them online.
0 -
I am not concerned about whether the fiche was digitized or not, it is not important. I only checked the fiche to confirm the batch number. I need to know why all the records assigned to batch c114852 are not in the Scotland Births & Baptism index. There are 17207 records in the index assigned to batch c114852, at present, but as mentioned before only 1 with parents William Ure and Christian Gray. Where are the other 5 baptisms for that couple that the fiche shows were assigned batch c114852.
0 -
1 - If they are not digitized, they will not be in the database.
2 - If the proper permissions have not been granted, they will not be in the database.
3 - If they have not been indexed, to be name-searchable, they cannot be found in the database.
2 -
No I cannot help much. I complement you - your question is very detailed and well laid out!
Here are the children in the IGI (yes you already mentioned this):
I would also point you to:
It seems perhaps that these indexes were 'left unattended' in preference of ScotlandsPeople database? That wiki page was last edited this past December (interesting).
As far as the database itself:
it is listed as a Legacy database - that is no longer added to nor 'maintained'. Your query is not listed as a known issue. The county coverage table lists Stirling not Stirlingshire (have no idea nor have searched on whether these are one in the same place). I can only suspect several reasons for why records that were on fiche are not in the database - timing of ScotlandsPeople database ( I don't know?), or contractual issues (don't know?). My personal suspicion is that the database has 'slowly dwindled' ...
shows 8,163,651 records while the wiki (above) indicates originally 11,015,780 - so your question remains unanswered!
The only Search> Images I could find for Larbert start 1855 (so doesn't help for your particular question):
1 -
Indexes of the Scottish censuses on FS are not available to non-members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
If a non-member of the aforesaid church searches for a name in the Scottish censuses, they always get zero results.
National Records of Scotland (NRS) is custodian not only of the censuses, but also civil registration and some church records. A similiar contractual issue could be affecting these records.
2 -
Thanks for all your comments. I didn't realize this was a legacy collection and thus not maintained.
1 -
Further checking on the definition of Legacy Collection, the following pretty well says it all. Obviously, I can't trust the data to accurate or complete. Not ideal but now I know.
Legacy Collections
Some of the older Historical Records collections were assembled for publication in April 2010. These were compiled from indexing projects completed by volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other organizations. These projects were not designed to index all available records for a given location. Therefore, they are incomplete. Since publication in 2010 only a few records may have been added. As no additional records will be added, or any corrections made to the data, these are considered to be "Legacy" collections.
Please be aware of the following:
- Data in the collection may have been subject to multiple post-indexing treatments which changed the originally indexed values or added data which was not indexed
- The indexing project may have had indexing instructions significantly different from those currently used in projects for the same locality
- As with all computer data files, some data may have become corrupted over time
- Multiple treatments may have been applied to the data with the result that some information may be incorrect.
Some of the records in these collections may have been included in the former International Genealogical Index (IGI). As these collections are an index compiled from various sources, it is strongly recommended that you verify any information you find with original records. Due to privacy laws not all records may be displayed.
1
