This is long, a review of the LDS CD for those who are interested from Eastman's latest newsletter. I ordered this CD a couple weeks ago and was told it was backordered until late November. - Vital Records Index - North America on CD-ROM Are you researching ancestors in the United States or Canada? And are you looking for records before the year 1888? Finally, do you use a Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT computer? If you answered "Yes" to all three of these questions, you need to read about a new CD-ROM disk set just released. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as "the Mormons," has now started shipping their new "Vital Records Index - North America" CD-ROM disk. This may well be the most important new CD-ROM of 1998 for anyone searching for ancestors within North America. The label on the disk set says, "These CDs contain information taken from a partial collection of birth, christening and marriage records of the United States and Canada. These records cover approximately 257 years, from 1631 to 1888, containing about 4 million names." For anyone new to genealogy, I should point out that the records of the Mormon Church are not limited to information about Mormons. They gather information from all the old public records they can find, regardless of the religious preferences of the people listed. You will find Protestants, Catholics, Jews and others all listed together, and you will rarely find any mention of the religion of the individuals mentioned. I had a chance to use the new CD-ROM set this week. I'm impressed. The following description of the data is extracted from the user's manual included on the CD-ROM disks: The Vital Records Index-North America on compact disc (CD) contains information taken from birth, christening and marriage records from selected states and provinces of the United States and Canada. Some names found in the Vital Records Index may also be found on the International Genealogical Index (IGI). This index includes: 1. Records that cover approximately from 1620 to 1888. 2. Approximately 5 million people on seven compact discs (six marriage CDs and one birth/christening CD). 3. The name of the individual, the parents' names when available, the date and place where the birth, christening, or marriage was registered, and the name of the individual's spouse. 4. Reference information that allows you to locate the original record on a microfilm. This index is not complete. Your ancestor may not appear here even though you know he or she lived in a time and place covered by the index. The Vital Records Index will continue to be updated, adding millions of new names with each update. Names in this index have been standardized, which means that variant name spellings are listed under a common name. For example, Smyth, Smithe, Smeith, would all be indexed under the name Smith. This allows you to search a name without knowing the exact spelling. However, you are still able to search under the exact spelling of an individual's name if you wish. These records are extracted records, which means that someone copied selected pieces of information from the original record. However, not all of the genealogically important information was extracted. Therefore, you should use the reference information provided in this index to locate the original record on microfilm and evaluate the original record yourself. This is not a complete index. Your ancestor may not appear here even though you know he or she lived in a time and place covered by the index. The Vital Records Index for North America will continue to be updated, adding millions of new names with each release. The following list provides a summary of the number of counties or places included within this index where records were extracted from within Canada and the United States. Canada Province # of Birth/Christening # of Marriage Collections Collections Extracted Manitoba 10 8 New Brunswick 3 3 Nova Scotia 2 5 Ontario 2 21 United States State # of Counties with # of Counties Birth/Christening Marriage records Records Alabama 6 51 Arkansas 3 37 California 0 2 Connecticut 5 5 District of Columbia 2 2 Florida 0 2 Georgia 32 135 Hawaii 1 1 Idaho 2 12 Illinois 37 46 Indiana 7 5 Iowa 41 61 Kansas 2 9 Kentucky 45 47 Louisiana 2 3 Maine 36 45 Maryland 33 26 Massachusettes 19 18 Michigan 12 11 Minnesota 9 5 Mississippi 4 71 Missouri 6 11 Montana 2 1 Nebraska 6 8 New Hampshire 1 1 New Jersey 37 60 New Mexico 18 15 New York 26 25 North Dakota 4 2 Ohio 23 18 Oklahoma 3 7 Oregon 0 6 Pennsylvania 47 35 Rhode Island 5 5 South Carolina 1 0 Tennessee 44 86 Texas 59 135 Washington 0 4 West Virginia 2 3 Wisconsin 8 4 Wyoming 0 8 Two apparent errors in the above list sort of "jumped out" at me. First, the obvious spelling error on "Massachusettes" seems like a simple typo error. However, I am confused by the statement that the records for Maine include 36 counties with birth/christening records and 45 counties with marriage records. That's a neat trick for a state that has only 16 counties! I don't have any explanation for that. However, when searching the CD-ROM for records from Maine, I did see entries from most of the 16 counties. Again, the CD-ROM does not cover all counties in all states and provinces. In fact, the records for Canada seem rather slim. Anyone researching French-Canadian ancestors will quickly note that there are no records from Quebec province on this set of disks. The coverage of the states that were settled first in the eastern United States seems good, but as you move westward the coverage becomes slimmer. When picking up the set for the first time, I was surprised to find that it is so big. The set fills 8 CD-ROM disks. One disk contains the "viewer" software; the other 7 disks all contain data. The label on the CD-ROM set cautions that the viewer software operates only on Windows 95 or Windows NT. I suspect it will operate on Windows 98 as well. There is no version for the Macintosh nor for Windows 3.1. The CD-ROM label also states that 8 megabytes of RAM memory is the minimum required to operate the software but that 16 megabytes or more is strongly recommended. I would expect that Windows NT would require still more memory. The rest of the requirements seem quite modest: a CD-ROM drive, a VGA monitor and video card supporting at least 256 colors, and at least 25 megabytes of disk space available. Most people will want a printer as well; the software will operate with any Windows- compatible printer. I tested the "Vital Records Index - North America" CD-ROMs on a Windows 95 system that had 16 megabytes of memory installed. Installing the software was a snap. It installs in the same manner as most other Windows programs. There is no printed manual included with the CD-ROMs; the manual is contained on the Viewer software disk. The user can read the manual on the screen or even print the entire thing on the local printer. I already have too much paper floating around, so I elected to not print it out. I didn't have much need to use the manual as the software seems easy to use. The few times that I did look at the manual on my screen, I was able to quickly find the information I was looking for. I quickly fired up the program and started searching for data. I entered my own surname and found hundreds of entries. I then narrowed the search to show only those records from the State of Maine. Again, the system displayed hundreds of records. I then narrowed the search further, first by year, then by first name. You can quickly narrow down the search to the specific areas of interest. You do end up "shuffling" the disks quite often in this set of multiple CD-ROM disk. You always start with data disk #1 inserted in the CD-ROM drive; apparently that disk contains the index. But, once you find a person in the index, continuing the search results in a message asking you to remove the current CD-ROM disk and to insert a different one. Keep in mind that this huge collection of records is an index. It does not have all the details of each event. Instead, it tells you where to find the details. For instance, here is the entry for my great-great-grandparents' marriage from the CD-ROM: EASTMAN, Washington H. Marriage Wife: Cynthia TYLER Marriage Date: 29 Mar 1831 Recorded in: Civil Records for Bangor, Penobscot, Maine Source: FHL Number 10584 Dates: 1864-1864 This entry from the CD-ROM says that a marriage record for two individuals on the given date does exist in the Civil Records for Bangor, Penobscot County, Maine. I can view a copy on the Family History Library's microfilm number 10584. The user's manual describes it this way: Source information is generally useful for locating the original record or a copy of the original record. The film numbers (FHL numbers) used in the source information apply only to the Family History Library and its branch libraries. Source information also includes information about the county, state or province the record was recorded in, the film the record is found in, the years covered within the film and occasionally, useful notes recorded by the original scribe Skipping over a few paragraphs of details, the user's manual continues: In most cases it is useful to see the original record from which the information found in the index was taken. The original record often contains additional information not found in the detail record. Sometimes, the person who was copying the information from the original record made mistakes. To find the original record, look in the detail pane of the record of the individual you are looking for. The Source field shows the Family History Library call number of the film, fiche, or book which contains a copy of the original record. The detail pane also shows the place where the record was originally recorded and the time span of the records in the film. Copies of most of the microfilms can be ordered for a small fee from one of more than 3,000 Family History Centers. Note: If you are using the Family History Resource File Viewer created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, click on the button with a picture of a temple, located on the lower screen. It provides the names and locations of hundreds of Family History Centers throughout the world. I already know that I can easily order a 3-week rental of that microfilm by visiting a local Family History Center near me. A three-week rental costs about $4.00. You can search all the records in the Vital Records Index for birth and christening records as well as for marriage records of an individual person. Birth and christening records show a person's parents, birth date, and birthplace, and often give other information. Marriage records show the names of a bride and groom as well as when and where the marriage took place. Four sections of the Search screen allow you to provide information: the Search section, the Individual section, the Events (optional) section, and the Relatives (optional) section. Only the individual name information is required to do a search. For any given information, you may choose to search birth/christening records or marriage records. If you select Birth/Christening, the information pertaining to birth and christening records will be searched. If you select Marriage, the information pertaining to marriage records will be searched. When conducting a search for an individual, you must type either the given name(s) or the last name(s) of a person to do a search. First given names and surnames of individuals have been standardized to help find most variations of last name spellings. For example, the last name Smyth will be listed with Smith, Smithe, Smethe, etc. You can further limit a search by providing the date and place of an event. In fact, you can further limit the search by using the optional Relatives section. You can also specify the names of the father and mother for birth/christening records and the name of the spouse for marriage records. All of this detail-level searching is optional. If you don't specify the details, then you see all the records for the names that you entered. While I displayed only one record for my great-great-grandfather above, keep in mind that there are many options for records. You can select one record or a group of records. The group can be all the records of a certain name, all the records of certain years, all the records of a certain place, or any combination of the above. You can also add or delete individual records from a group. Individual records or groups of records can be printed on any Windows-compatible printer. In addition, records or groups of records, up to 100 at a time, can be can be saved as a GEDCOM (GEnealogical Data COMmunication) file. This allows you to export records from the index to your favorite genealogy program, assuming that it can read GEDCOM files (most programs do). Records from the Vital Records Index can be saved as an RTF (Rich Text Format for word processing) file. This allows you to export records from the index to a word processing package. I was able to save a group of all the Eastman records from Penobscot County, Maine and then import that data into Microsoft Word. I did not find any direct method of saving the data to a spreadsheet, something that I like to do. However, several of the better genealogy programs have the capability to import a GEDCOM file and then to create a spreadsheet file. For example, I was able to create a GEDCOM file from data on the CD-ROM, import it into The Master Genealogist, and then use that program to create a spreadsheet from the data. Unlike some other genealogy CD-ROM disks that I have described in recent weeks, the Vital Records Index-North America viewer software does support the Windows Clipboard in the same manner as most other Windows programs. I was able to copy data from the CD- ROM and then paste it into this newsletter using the normal cut- and-paste commands. The viewer software CD-ROM has a couple of "extra goodies" not mentioned in the manual: it has information about why the Mormons are so interested in genealogy. It also contains a listing of all the local LDS Family History Centers in the United States, Canada, the British Isles, Scandinavia, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. This particular set of CD-ROM disks is probably the biggest release of North American GENEALOGY records in electronic format of the year. So how much does it cost? You won't believe this: the price is $19.00 U.S. funds. That's not much money for seven data CD-ROM disks and another disk with the software and users' manual! I'll bet that Santa Claus delivers a lot of these disks this year. If you would like to purchase a copy of the "Vital Records Index - North America," call 800-537-5971 from the U.S. or Canada. Callers outside North America can call 1-801-240-1126. FAX orders may be set to 801-240-3685. You can specify a credit card number on any of these methods. Finally, you can send an order and a check by old-fashioned mail if you address the envelope to: Church Distribution Center 1999 West 1700 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84104-4233 U.S.A. When ordering, make sure that you specify "Item #50029, North American Vital Records Index (1620-1888)." Cheryl Rothwell clrothwell@mindspring.com Logan County, ILGenWeb, coordinator http://www.rootsweb.com/~illogan/loindex.htm Logan County mailing list> LOGAN-L@rootsweb.com Downing mailing list> DOWNING-L@rootsweb.com