scotlandspeople v IGI

[piedstilt]

Sorry if this question has been raised before.

Just wondering if anyone knows how comprehensive the IGI is in relation to the scotlandspeople's pre-1854 records?

I need to offer some advice, so I don't want to put people wrong. Personally, I can't recall finding anything on SP (where I have spent a great deal of money) that I didn't find first (for free) on the IGI - but I'm a very limited sample ...

Omigod! I've just visited the site for the first time in ages. It has gone all pink and blue!! I miss the brown. I have one credit left (and no one to look up immediately) so I'd be interested to know if the new look comes with any other changes?

Thanks for any input,

Ros

[JAP]

Hi Ros,

Re pre-1855 Scottish records.

I always look up the online IGI first!  After all, it's FREE!

But, sad to say, there ARE gaps in the online IGI.  For example, there are many birth/baptism batches where (for some incomprehensible reason) only the girls have been entered into the online IGI

My next step is to go to my local LDS Family History Centre and consult the Scottish Church Records CD there.  It is definitely more comprehensive.  And this too is a FREE search.

I have not found any pre-1855 records on ScotlandsPeople which were not in the Scottish Church Records CD - but, of course, that is not to say that there aren't any to be found ...  It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has found pre-1855 records on SP which are not in the Scottish Church Records CD.

As far as the 'revamped' pink and blue site is concerned, apart from the transfer of Scottish Wills to SP from Scottish Documents there are a few other changes - there is some mention of these in the 'Formal Launch of ScotlandsPeople' under 'Latest Update & News' on the Home Page.

JAP
(Edited to amend pre-1854 to pre-1855)

[capricorn]

Hi JAP,  I was led to believe that not all pre 1854 records are on the Scottish Church Records CD -  please correct me if I'm wrong.

Liz

[JAP]

Hi Liz,

As I said, I don't know from personal experience whether there are pre-1855 records on SP which are not on the Scottish Church Records CD (and/or on the old Fiche of the IGI).  What I do know for sure is that there are definitely gaps in the online IGI - which seemed to be kena's main query.  For instance (as I mentioned), there are the batches where only the girls are included in the online IGI - I personally am aware of many of these in Ayrshire and in Lanarkshire.

And, of course, any of the records - on SP and/or on the CD and/or in the IGI online or on microfiche - include only those from registers which have survived and have been transcribed and indexed.

As you will well know, there are many old church registers which didn't survive, and there are many which have not (yet ...) been transcribed and indexed.  Most of the records which have been transcribed and indexed are the Old Parish Registers of the Established (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland plus a few Church Registers of Seceding Branches of the Church of Scotland.  I understand that there is a project by the National Archives of Scotland to transcribe other surviving Registers but whether that will happen in the foreseeable future is another matter!

Just to add another point, the pre-1855 entries in the IGI, CD and on SP are only births/baptisms and banns/marriages.  So it's always worth checking out the LDS Family History Library on FamilySearch in case there are deaths/burials which have been filmed.

No doubt others will contribute to this discussion

Best regards,

JAP
(edited to change pre-1854 to pre-1855)

[ibi]

I was led to believe that not all pre 1854 records are on the Scottish Church Records CD -  please correct me if I'm wrong.

Liz

Liz

The most up-to-date listings of OPR records are the computerised indexes at New Register House in Edinburgh, but these can only be consulted at NRH, or an increasing number of local registration service linked research centres around Scotland, - Park Circus in Glasgow is now linked into the DIGROS system in Edinburgh, and the centres, existing and planned in Dundee, Aberdeen, N Lanarkshire (Motherwell?) and The Borders (Selkirk?).  Can someone who visits the GRO Family Records Centre in London  confirm what is the present situation regarding the link to Edinburgh.

The LDS/GSU Scottish Churches CD represents the OPR indexes as they were, several years ago, at the time the CD was made, and will not include any additions or corrections subsequently made to the OPR indexes at NRH.

The OPR indexes on-line at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk are always several months behind the indexes in Edinburgh, and are only presently worthwhile using as a last and final check after exhausting other sources.  They will become worthwhile using when the linked digitised images start to come on line, possibly in 2006, hopefully certainly by 2007.  The digitisation is already complete, but there have been major problems in linking the indexes to the images, so that it was eventually decided that the OPRs will be re-indexed.

There is a project on the go between Scottish Archives Network (SCAN), National Archives of Scotland (NAS), and Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) to digitise and index the kirk session records in series CH2 and CH3, these being the sessional records of the Established Church of Scotland and some Free kirk congregations.

It's a while since I heard about progress, but, previously it was anticipated that the project would take between 4 and 5 years.

Note that these are sessional records, which only sometimes contain info on BDMs.

Don't ignore the LDS British Vital Records series of CDs which contain some Scottish info, - I've been told by Salt Lake City contacts that IGI is no longer updated, but any new info added to the Vital Records.

If you can manage a visit to SLC, there is a 3 volume loose-leaf index of all of the known extant Scottish church records,  - whatever flavour, - of which GSU/LDS are aware. 

I'm not aware of any plans as yet to convert this to a format that would then be made available to Family History Centres, - there may a complication in that, as sometimes happens, some information has been made available on the basis that it never goes outside the SLC library.

As stated in other posts the OPR indexes are predominantly the records of the Established Church of Scotland, and only include a small number of secession church records.  The OPRs themselves were always intended to include records on all parishioners, regardless of adherence, but it's rare to find such entries in the OPRs.

Depending on the particular era, and the extent to which a particular secession church predominated in a particular parish, there can be very few records in OPR.  Particular problems are the period 1843 to 1854 after the Disruption, and the cities from the early 1800s onwards, one survey in Glasgow indicated that 50% of births went unrecorded in the OPR in the 1820s.

ibi

[piedstilt]

Ibi,

Thanks so much for your erudite, interesting and useful summary. It will take a while to absorb it all, but I shall certainly save it for future reference.

I'm one of those distant researchers (NZ), but I plan to visit the UK next year and information such as yours will be invaluable.

JAP. Thanks to you, too. I'm in the process of writing you a PM!

Liz. Hope you are finding this as interesting/useful as I am!

Ros

[Mary G.]

Its interesting that a prior poster noted that there are odd gaps in the IGI, such as only the female children in a family being listed, and all the males omitted. This has been my experience as well, and not just for Scotland. I have lines born there and elsewhere where only sons are listed and all the daughters are not, or vice versa. Catholic materials are obviously missing entirely for the most part unless they have been submitted by LDS members or other researchers (not a big deal for Scotland itself , but a very big deal when your Scots line has gone elsewhere in the world and intermarried).

I have a comprehensive tree that was made for estate settlement purposes in the 1850's for a family that originated in Prestonpans, East Lothian (it goes back to a couple who married there in 1685, and traces almost all their descendents from their marriage to the 1850s on both sides of the Atlantic). It was very well documented in terms of Scots church records, and has proven 100% reliable for the portions we've been able to confirm - and my observation on checking every name is that about 30 or 40% of the names show up in the IGI and the rest are missing. Go figure! I have no idea how half of the children born to the same parents in the same village and christened in the same church would make it to the IGI and the other half vanish.

So, the IGI gives you good clues and its free, so it is important for at least developing working hypothesies - but you need other sources to triangulate, confirm and expand.

Mary G.

[piedstilt]

Hi Mary,

Thanks for your interesting and informative reply - and what a treasure such a carefully documented family tree must be!

Ros

[JAP]

Its interesting that a prior poster noted that there are odd gaps in the IGI, such as only the female children in a family being listed, and all the males omitted.

Mary, I always try to be careful to say that this particular type of gap (i.e. females-only batches) occurs in the online IGI on the FamilySearch website at:
http://www.familysearch.org
This is because I've not come across it in other versions of the IGI e.g. the old microfiche versions (and not in the LDS's Scottish Church Records CD).

This has been my experience as well, and not just for Scotland.  I have lines born there and elsewhere where only sons are listed and all the daughters are not, or vice versa.

I haven't come across any males-only batches myself (though perhaps some families might have bothered to baptise only the boys!) but females-only batches (i.e. where only the females have been extracted into the online IGI from a church register which contained the normal mix of boys and girls) certainly occur in England as well as in Scotland.  And seem to be increasing there with 'I' birth/baptism batches.  'I' batches (there are 'I' marriage batches also) are increasingly coming online and are clearly extracted from church records - but give no information as to their source.

Catholic materials are obviously missing entirely for the most part unless they have been submitted by LDS members or other researchers (not a big deal for Scotland itself , but a very big deal when your Scots line has gone elsewhere in the world and intermarried).

My main problem researching in Scotland has been that most of the records in the IGI are from the Old Parish Registers of the Established (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland and that there is very poor representation in the IGI of records of secessionist Presbyterian churches - and the Presbyterian church was very good at breakaways and re-formings!  The following site has a good diagrammatic representation and description of the schisms:
http://website.lineone.net/~davghalgh/churchhistory.html

My ancestors in Kippen, Stirlingshire were members of the Associate Session church at Buchlyvie.  Some of their births/baptisms and marriages were also recorded in the Kippen OPRs (often with disapproving remarks such as 'baptised by a Seceder') and therefore appear in the IGI - but many were not.  A wonderful person (she's a RootsChatter) consulted some old Buchlyvie Associate Session registers starting ca 1750 held at the Stirling Archives and found great information - but, you'd have to know, a volume in the middle of the period is missing!  This vol would include my Ggggma's baptism ca 1815 - and, of course, it's a record which didn't make it into the Kippen OPR.

<snip>  So, the IGI gives you good clues and its free, so it is important for at least developing working hypothesies - but you need other sources to triangulate, confirm and expand.

I don't know where we'd all be without the LDS and the IGI - especially the entries in the IGI from the controlled extraction program!  But what you say is true.  And it is always worthwhile ordering in the films of the actual church registers to a local LDS FHC (and also checking whether there are other relevant films which haven't been indexed into the IGI).  Sometimes there's nothing more in the church register than what is in the IGI but sometimes there's wonderful additional information.

JAP