Hi Pat, Stuff in IGI is of two types: 1. abstracted index of a primary source (like Irish Civil Registration) 2. patron submissions. You need to be very care because all the data is secondary. In all cases you must find the original document in order to determine if the item is really what you hoped it was and also to hopefully find more stuff that is NOT in the index. So you always need to evaluate the source and generally obtain a film of the original record. Patron submissions have a very low degree of reliability as no proof is required for submission. The submission may be family oral history or it may be from a primary record like a church record. You don't generally know unless you can find additional information indicating that the family was 'done' by a member. To find that info you would need to search the catalog. Surname search is a good place to start since that'll turn up manuscripts and collections of family history deposited in LDS. Much of this is filmed. It'll also disclose published family histories. >The birth of John and Nancy's eldest daughter, Elizabeth Mary, is in the IGI >under Larne so I presume this would have been the Registery Office for >Islandmagee? No, you can't assumed anything. You need to find the source. If you click on the film that it came from you might be able to ID the source. Otherwise perhaps the source of this info is a gas attack by an old lady <grin>! >John and Nancy's marriage certificate gives John's father as Arthur Magill. >Nancy's father was Capt. John Mawhinney. > >In both instances there is the mind-blowing message: "Record submitted >after 1991 by a member of the LDS Church. No additional information is >available......" (There is nothing in Ancestral File). So this is a clue but it is not proof. It needs followed up on. Actually patron submissions are depressing to find because usually you can't get further info (that's why it says "No additional information ...." <grin>) and the credibility of the entry is the very lowest. You should be thinking "Durn,... a patron submission!" >My question is. Is the person who submitted the entry on this List, please? I would be very surprised if they are. If you go to the LDS website and search through the free aids you'll find a couple that can help you locate the source. That's if you can't just click on the film number for the entry and get the film number. The film with the patron submissions may have additional info that will lead you to more clues. Usually I don't bother to follow up on patron submissions. Instead I try to locate primary records to verify the info. >It takes one's breath away to know there is someone out there who apparently >knows something about the family but remains a mystery! Actually that person may have nothing but misleading information. There are no standards. You can submit Daffy Duck's genealogy and it would probably go in without a hitch. To give you an example of what happens, on a non Scotch Irish line of my mothers, I recently got an email from a very enthusiastic distant cousin, just starting out. He offered to share his family info and was interested in how my line fit into his. I told him some brief stuff. He claimed his relatives had huge amounts of information. I asked what the source was. He asked several genealogy-adicted relatives who all told him the same thing: all their stuff came from us. Now this is a line that no one has really 'researched'. Ie 100% of what we know was collected by my great uncle, mother, and sister via oral family history. No one went to the county records office and reviewed even a single marriage certificate. No one did any census work. It's completely unreliable. Now I do not know if it is in IGI, uploaded by some 'genealogist' who lacks the ability to even visit the county records office. Whether it is in IGI or not it is entirely uncredibable. Yet all kinds of remote cousins are sharing this information as if it were gold. It's crap. One day one of them will upload it to IGI, if it is not there now. I told the cousin that it was worthless and of course I did not hear back from him. No matter how many people forward that research on, it could be all wrong till one person actually does some research and proves it, providing sources such as: civil registration, wills, deeds, censuses, church records, cemetery records, obits etc, etc. If you think your ancestor came from the Larne area, then you shold be reading local history on the area. The key to Irish genealogy is local history. There's a wealth of it. To start, consult Ryan "Irish Records", Antrim chapter. You can try the Antrim list and the archives of this list. LDS catalog will also have some sources for you as well. If you check our website at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~merle you will find links to some of the best genealogy websites on the Internet that will have a lot of what is in Ryan "Irish Records" (but not what is in Falley). Beyond these there are experts in Larne and Islandmagee local history. Some publish and are active in the Ulster Scots Agency...gee, what's its name?? Recently sent me their newsletter... All my stuff is packed away or I'd dash off some names. A Broadisland Journal springs to mind. Check our archives: www.rootsweb.com -- under Mail Lists select interactive search, then type in Scotch-Irish . Best of luck! Linda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net