question about an I.G.I record
hi.
i have found a record in the i.g.i of a thomas pritchard born 1778 ruabon.denbigh.wales.
ref org/ark:/61903/2:1:932n-km7
may i ask how and where i would find this record please.
thank you.brian pritchard
Best Answer
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@brianpritchard1 here is the link to the IGI. You will have to add the information of your ancestor to get the information you are searching https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/igi
I hope that helps you. 😊
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Answers
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thank you for your reply.
may i ask would that record have derived from a microfiche somewhere, as i cannot find it anywhere else.
thanks.Brian
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Brian
In the 1980s (and probably for some time later) I used to consult the IGI at my local Family History Centre, using a microfiche reader. I still have paper copies taken from many of the microfiche pages I read.
Another user (possibly an employee) will have to advise if these sheets were digitised, or are to be in future. I'm sure a limited amount of FHCs will still have copies covering their part of the country / world, but many of these have probably been returned to Salt Lake - especially if the FHC no longer has a working microfiche reader.
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I'm not sure how familiar you are with the IGI so in case you are not, and for anyone who reads this who has no idea what the IGI is, first I'll give some background and then answer your question.
The IGI, which is short for the International Genealogical Index, was a listing of all names submitted to prior incarnations of FamilySearch. Its current digitized form can be searched in the Genealogies section of FamilySearch. What you find there is exactly what was in the microfiche then CD versions of the index. The IGI itself did not contain any sources. Each entry contained either an individual with parents if known or a couple. Entries were not otherwise linked in families
There are two portions to the IGI, the patron submitted records and the community submitted records. The patron submitted records usually cannot be tranced back to the specific source they came from. The community submitted records were all extraction and indexed records and remained connected to their original extraction or indexed record and all these records can be found in the various Historical Records databases.
The entire IGI was imported into Family Tree which is one of the reasons why so many duplicates can be found in Family Tree.
Looking at the record you are searching for, it is clearly a patron submitted record since it only has his name, an approximate birth date and a "first known location" which is what "of" signifies. It could be where a child was born, where he got married, it might even be where he was born. This means that it is highly unlikely that it ever had a source recorded for it. Decades ago there was not much of a requirement for sources when submitting names and if there was a source, it was not included in the IGI.
There is one hope for tracing back this record. This is if it still exists in Family Tree and has not been merged with other people. And here it is: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/932N-KM7 Unfortunately, it was a false hope because this contains nothing more than the IGI record itself. I was hoping it was an old enough record that it might be included in the Family Group Sheet Archive. I'll still check there - No he is not included in that collection.
Going back to the format of the record you are asking about, the past researcher who was working on him likely had him, his wife, and some children. That "about 1778" "birthdate" is likely just 20 years before the birth of his first child. His parents are not known or they would have been in the record you found. When the family was submitted, it would have been split in several, unconnected records. 1) Him as a child with birth information. 2) His wife as a child with birth information and parents if known. 3) Him and his wife with marriage information but no birth information. 4 - ?) Each of their children with birth information and parents.
Based on his individual record, there is really no way to reconstruct this family.
There are probably hundreds of thousands of records in the IGI in the same state as this one, orphaned from anything that would identify who the person really is. Family Tree is a massively improved IGI because it keeps families all connected together and it allows the inclusion of sources.
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