While not a member of the LDS church have spent quite a few years volunteering in my local family history centers so feel I can give a little information about the IGI etc. Hope nobody minds. The entries come from several sources: 1) members of the church who add their family member's names and information for baptism of the dead (you will often see reference to Ordinance, a date and place of baptism). The member information if placed in the IGI primarily, I understand, to assist other church members find their ancestors. I also understand that all church members try to find at least 4 generations back for these ordinances. The batch numbers for these entries will not commonly have letters ie the Batch number for the marriage of Dwight & Charlotte Wilson below has no letter so is an entry of a church member. The film would show the original entry and most, but not all, reference where the information was gleaned--ie family bible, town records, etc. An A in front of the batch number is a marriage also entered by a church member. But rule number one with this type of IGI entry is to only use it as a working file..not as the end of your research. This said I have also found some great stuff in the ordinance files from the 1890s. Names of the contributor's aunts, cousins etc with approx birth dates and places of births. In this particular case this person knew the deceased cousins and aunts & uncles so I have used it as a type of oral family history and so note it as such. Most I have been able to confirm. BUT as Linda says, the information can be so far out of line as to be useless. Which is why there may be multiple entries of the birth or marriage of supposedly one particular person with dates as far apart as 20 years and 2 or 3 different spouses all at the same time so ALWAYS try to verify everything and/or find supporting information. AND I always look at the original film to check the full entry for the IGI. I had found one family connected to the Sacketts with all the siblings but one entered into the baptismal ordinances in the 1920s, by a person who had to have known about his uncle, and was told by a church member that if the uncle was not a member of the LDS and living family members objected to the baptism it would not have been done. Which may well have been what happened or maybe GrUncle Arthur didn't like that uncle and didn't want to spend eternity with him! By the way, I have heard some people object to the blanket baptism of the dead non members of the LDS church (their believe, in common with some other religious, has a heaven only inhabited by baptized members of the church) but without getting into a religious controversy, If you don't believe it will work, why be upset! But before you stop reading... 2) The extraction of records filmed by the LDS by permission of the record holder..for instance the Scottish Parish records before 1855. These records have Batch numbers preceded by letters. Commonly C for christenings, M for marriages etc B for burials. Now some have P. These would be primary records So the Batch number can indicate what kind of record will be found on the film. Also if in doubt, do the LDS library search by film number which will give the description of the film. (this is one of the search options) Generally I have found it very useful to look at the film with the IGI entry..often you will find multiple entries by the same person. Newer IGI entries will have a better chance of contacting the person who made the entry but once or twice I have been lucky. Some old pictures were found through a daughter of one Sackett who had entered many of his family and had died before I found the entries. It has only been lately that I have found entries with no source given for the entry. Hopefully, this will not become common Deaths are not usually shown in the IGI but may be found in the original entries. As a non church member I did enter the information from a family bible into the Ancestral file..simple to make the information available not for death baptism. -----Original Message----- From: Thurmon E King [mailto:thurmonking@juno.com] Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2004 4:12 AM To: SACKETT-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SACKETT-L] Dwight Sackett - need parents Robin: I think the information you had came from another database on World Connect #:11466 by a Drummond. It has the one son named Otis Eugene born in 1848. I have found another problem concerning the marriage of Dwight Sackett and Caroline A. Bolton. Some sources have Dwights birth as 1824 Worcester, MA and his marriage there in 1844. It appears that the information there came from the LDS IGI. Files there have two dates and two different sources cited: (1). Dwight Sackett; Male Marriage: 15 MAR 1824 Of, Leominster, Worcester, Massachusetts Source Information: Film Number: 183515; Page Number: 254; Reference number: 9190 (2). DWIGHT SACKETT; Male Spouse: CHARLOTTE E. WILSON Marriage: 15 MAR 1844 Leominster, Worcester, Massachusetts Source Information: Batch Number: 7130128; Sheet: 14 ; Source Call No.: 0538998; Type: Film It is not clear whether these films are of original records, or are of contributed data. From the information above it appears that there is a problem with the information found on the films. Another problem relates to the name of his wife. The 2nd source gives the name of Dwight's bride as Charlotte E. Wilson. But the 1850 and 1870 censuses give the name of his wife as Caroline A. Sackett. Mary Lou Sackett has the marriage date and place as March 01, 1845, Brattleboro, Windham Co., VT. Mary Lou would have more information about finding records in MI than I do. But if one could get a copy of Dwight's death certificate some valuable information can be gained from it. The answer to question about when it is appropriate to add an individual to your family tree depends upon who is giving the answer. Generally a connection should be a tentative connection until it is proven by source documents. The purists generally insist upon having documentation from primary source documents. And insist upon viewing the document, or image of the document themselves. With the older handwritten documents this is important because letters in the words can easily be transcribed incorrectly and another person reading the same document can read it correctly. So research done by others should be double checked to make sure it is correct. Those of us on the SACKETT-L and members of TSFA are tryiing to correct errors in Weygant's book and add information and sources that he did not supply. At the same time we are compiling information on as many Sackett descendants as possible. So the purists "grit their teeth" at the kind of work I am doing. I make tentative connections and then look to others to help with finding the sources and inform me of any errors I may have posted. I do this because information comes in from others in such a large quantity that I am not able to access and view the source documents myself. But, as you have noticed, I do check the data for inconsistencies and look for clues. Thurmon On Fri, 23 Jan 2004 18:29:43 -0800 Robin Smith <unsackett@sbcglobal.net> writes: > I understand. I also assumed that Eugene had died in infancy. I believe I > had taken the birth dates from another researchers tree and did not notice > the discrepancy until you pointed it out. I will look for confirmation of > the the date. > > I feel that it is likely that Dwight Sackett son of Asher Sackett Jr. is > indeed the connection I was looking for (given the dates, the older brother > Henry, and the coincidence of a Dwight and Henry of the proper ages both in > Assyria). Do you have any suggestions on how I might confirm this. > When is it appropriate to add these ancestors to my tree. Is there an > etiquette regarding how much confirmation one should have. As I said, I am a > genealogy newby. Again, I greatly appreciate your help. > > Robin ==== SACKETT Mailing List ==== GEN-NEWBIE-L: No question is too elementary and the atmosphere is relaxed & friendly. GEN-NEWBIE-D: This list is the digest mode for GEN-NEWBIE-L. ============================== Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more. http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237