Identifying the primary source for an entry on the IGI
Hi
I have been working for some time on a New England ancestor whose given name is usually 'unknown' or blank (including in at least one book, and also on our own family records).
Family Tree, however, has him as Enoch, as do some trees on other genealogical sites. No sources are provided for any of these references. (A very well sourced Enoch does exist, but born c.20 years too late and with a different spouse and children.)
I have however now discovered a couple of entries on the International Genealogical Index that list Enoch with the correct spouse; one of their (well sourced) sons is also mentioned, though with a very garbled given name ('Falcom' for 'Welcome'), which makes me suspicious that other aspects of the primary source may have been misinterpreted also.
I suspect these IGI entries of being the root of the unsourced 'Enoch' references on FT and elsewhere.
What I would like to do now is to view the primary source(s) of the IGI entries, so that I can identify once and for all whether or not he was called Enoch. This is proving very difficult to achieve.
The batch numbers start A-, which I understand from the wiki ('IGI Batch Number Descriptions') to mean 'Archive'. The wiki provides a link for information supplied post 1941; I can't see any evidence re the age of the IGI entries, but I clicked on the link ('Family Group Records Collection, Archives Section, 1942-1969'). This didn't seem to allow entry of a batch number, which is what I was expecting, but I browsed on Enoch's surname, which gave me this message: 'Images Available | To view these images do one of the following: | You may be able to view this image by visiting one of our partners' sites or the legal record custodian (fees may apply).', but no actual images.
So now I am completely stuck. I don't know whether the information is post 1941 or not. I don't know whether any of the images that are 'Available' relate to my batch number or not, let alone whether they relate to 'Enoch'. I don't know, and have no way of assessing, which 'partners' sites' or 'legal record custodian' are relevant.
I would be grateful for any guidance anyone can provide please!
Many thanks
Mandy Shaw
Answers
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You'll find a description of the IGI on the collection landing page: https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/5 and an option to view some of the contributions in the Genealogies section.
I would pay particular attention to this sentence in the description (emphasis mine)
Names in the original IGI came from 2 different sources: indexed records and user contributions.
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Many thanks - unfortunately, as I now realise, it was the user contributions I was looking at previously (via a Genealogies search); so this gives me the same results as before & doesn't seem to take me any nearer to the primary source(s).
This does, presumably, explain why doing a historical records search using the identified batch number gives zero results.
I guess I had been assuming that user contributions would be associated with primary source location information, even if the actual source was not accessible (maybe family Bibles or whatever), but perhaps not.
I am now trying the different approach of trawling some of the more hopeful looking unindexed image sets.
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