Problem with Attaching England & Wales Birth & Death Registrations - an addendum
Below is the text of a handout I have prepared for our local LDS FH Centre - there is an additional important element not noticed before regarding how this treatment of birth and death registration indexes can actually block the submission of temple work by LDS members in certain circumstances - I just wish someone would fix it by recognising that these index records are prima facia evidence of births and deaths.
Using Birth & Death Registration Indexes for England and Wales
In the early period of FS Family Tree – Any attachment of a birth or death registration index source record was considered as prima facia evidence of a birth or death – resulting in FamilySearch automatically attributing (tagging) the attached source to the Birth or Death “Vital” event.
Therefore, when examining all the sources for the birth or death event – such registration entries would be listed.
However, from a few years ago FS made a change with the following effects:
(a) Birth Registrations are no longer considered as evidence of a Birth – the Birth Registration details are filed under “Other” (meaning – not connected to a Life “Vital” event) – resulting in the Birth Registration event not being tagged or listed with other Birth sources.
(b) Death Registrations continue to be considered as evidence of Death and the Death “Vital” event tagged for death in the periods Q2/1837-1977 and 2005-2007 . . . but not for 1978-2004 – which are also filed under “Other” (meaning – not connected to a Life “Vital” event). Additionally – all death registrations 1866 (when “age at death” was added to the index) to 2007 are also considered as prima facia evidence of the Birth and accordingly tag the Birth Vital event as well.
Notes:
· Birth Registrations which have a clearly understood age at birth as zero – but never stated – are not accorded the same evidential status for a Birth as are such equivalent Death Registrations, which are allowed to assume the death took place in the registration quarter (other than for the 1978-2004 exception noted above).
· This problem has been submitted several times over the past two years to FS via “GetSatisfaction” and “Community – Ideas” but with no FS response.
· If there is a scarcity of source records for an individual – for instance, in England and Wales (having encountered this) – born after 1911 and if then, the resulting sources are only a birth registration of any date and a death registration in the period 1978-2004 – then, for LDS users any attempt to submit for temple ordinances would fail for insufficient data . . . as the failure of FS to recognise these sources as applying to “Vital” events does not add the place names from the source records to the birth and death “Vital” events - which is an essential requirement for temple submissions to have at least one “Vital” event with a linked standard place name.
Conclusions:
It is hoped that FamilySearch will correct this at some point and return to recognising the accepted genealogical conclusion that –
GRO birth and death registration indexes for any period are prima facia evidence for a birth or death “Vital” event.
Until FS correct this anomaly –
a. for those that wish to continue to see any birth or death (1978-2004) registrations correctly tagged to the Birth or Death “Vital” event – it is necessary to backtrack on each such source attachment – to open the attached source and add in the “Tag” for the birth or death.
b. for those that wish to ensure that any birth or death (1978-2004) registrations do not block any temple submissions – it is necessary to backtrack to each such “Vital” birth or death event – and add in the place location from the source record (registration district, county, country) that will trigger a link with an associated standard place name.