Barking Up the Wrong Tree: FamilySearch

20 July 2012

FamilySearch

The Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah has the most extensive genealogy record collection in the world.

"The Collection includes over 2.4 million rolls of microfilmed genealogical records; 727,000 microfiche; 356,000 books, serials, and other formats; over 4,500 periodicals and 3,725 electronic resources."

The library's catalog is available online at FamilySearch.org and is free*. Of course not all of us will be able to make it to Salt Lake City to visit this mecca. Luckily there are library branches in 80 countries and the LDS Church is constantly adding indexes and digitized images to its website. Next week's post will be about visiting FamilySearch Centers. This week will be about using the website.
*You may need to sign in to view some images which just means you need to create a username and password. FamilySearch will not ask for a credit card number unless you are ordering microfilm.

RECORDS
The first thing you'll notice on the home page is the search box which is set to automatically search records that have been indexed. You can mark individual facts to be searched exactly by checking the small box next to each fact. Years can be made exact by entering the same year in the 'From' and 'To' boxes. You do not need to enter a name to do a search. A search that has been incredibly fruitful for me has been searching on just the names of parents. No name. No place. No years. Only parents names.

Example 1:
In the 1910 US Federal Census you see that your ancestor gave birth to 5 children but only 3 are living in 1910. Both of those children were born and died after the 1900 census and before 1910. Searching with just the parents' names may bring up a birth/baptism record and/or a death record.
Example 2:
You're looking for descendants but cannot find the daughters because you don't know their married names. Entering just the parents' names may bring up a death certificate or a marriage record.

One drawback on FamilySearch is the inability to make corrections. Records are transcribed exactly as they are on the page and those that are difficult to read may be transcribed incorrectly.

TREES
The second search tab is 'Trees'. Trees on FamilySearch can only be submitted by members of the LDS Church. That doesn't make them any more reliable than the trees on Ancestry.com and you know how I feel about those so we'll just skip this ;-)

CATALOG
There are still millions of records that have not been indexed so searching the catalog is a necessity when you can't find what you're looking for. There are two ways to search the catalog and it is worth searching both ways. The first way is to use the 'catalog' tab. The second is by scrolling down the home page and browsing by location. You can narrow down your browsing (area, time period, record collection) on the next page. All collections that have digitized images have a camera icon next to them. If the items aren't digitized and have a film number you can order that microfilm (more on that next week).
Here are examples of search results using both searches.

Example 1: Catalog tab - Place-names search - India, Bengal

Biography

- History of the Cossimbazar Raj in the nineteenth century, period covered, 1804-1897

Church history

- History of the Catholic missions in central Bengal 1855-1886

Church records

- Parish register transcripts from the Presidency of Bengal, 1713-1948

- Roman Catholic returns of baptisms, marriages and burials, 1835-1856

Court records

- Court proceedings, 1727-1774

Directories

- A general register of the Honourable East India Company's civil servants of the Bengal establishment from 1790 to 1842

- Scott and Co.'s Bengal directory, and register, with almanac and appendix

History

- History of the Cossimbazar Raj in the nineteenth century, period covered, 1804-1897

- George Nesbitt Thompson and some of his descendants

Merchant marine

- Indian Navy, Bengal pilots, 1858-1861

- Bengal marine, miscellaneous correspondence and financial papers, 1831

- List of Europeans in the service of the Bengal marine, 1848-1860

- Bengal marine annual report, 1844-1857

- Bengal marine financial reports, 1873-1874

- Bengal marine civil and marine casualties, 1824-1864

- European officers and seamen serving in the Bengal naval brigades, 1858-1860

- Bengal pilot service papers, 1796-1880

- List of seamen in the Bengal marine who have claims on the company for wages, 1821

Probate records - Indexes

- List of wills to be found in the Bengal Public Consultations, volumes I to VI

Probate records

- Court proceedings, 1727-1774

- Bengal wills 1728-1774; Bombay wills 1728-1783; Madras wills 1753-1779; index 1704-1783

- Bengal wills and administrations, 1774-1937; indexes 1774-1909

Social life and customs

- Marriage and rank in Bengali culture : a history of caste and clan in middle period Bengal

Example 2: Browse by location - Asia & Middle East - India (no option to narrow location further)

- India Deaths and Burials, 1719-1948

- India, Births and Baptisms, 1786-1947

- India, Hindu Pilgrimage Records

- India, Marriages, 1792-1948

- India, Punjab, Moga Land Ownership Pedigrees, 1887-1958

The catalog also includes books. Some books have been microfilmed but those that are only available in hard copy do not leave the main library. If you find a book that looks promising try searching Google Books. If it is cataloged in Google Books click the "find in a library" link, enter your zip code and you may find a copy closer than Salt Lake City.

LEARN

On the header of the FamilySearch home page you'll see the 'Learn' button. The section of this I'd like to point out is the Learning Center. It has video research courses to help with everything from What is a Census? to the Australian Civil Registration Index to Reading Russian Handwritten Records. FamilySearch also has a YouTube channel. The videos on their YouTube channel are conveniently grouped into playlists so you can easily find and view videos on a specific topic.

UPDATE: Click here for a playlist of YouTube videos related to FamilySearch.

PREVIOUS POST: Four By Five
NEXT POST: Logic is Overrated
RELATED POST: Visiting a FamilySearch Center

2 comments:

hgrovesFriday, 20 July, 2012
Thank you for doing this series. I have just this week come to the realization that I will need to visit my local Family History Center to look up some records on microfilm and have been slightly intimidated by the thought for some reason (and me with a library degree, go figure). Anyway, I look forward to your next installment!
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Blog Reviews

Barking has been "deemed offensive to [Ancestry.com's] brand" and is banned from their Facebook pages. In Ancestry's "Community" comments with links to Barking are censored.
Dear Emma, Hannah, Jemima, Mary Jane, and all of her other personalities agree that I use "the banner of 'education' to actually mock, deride and laugh at [Ancestry's] own customers" and I "can make [my] point concerning tree inaccuracies & cock-ups and their effect on our 'hints' system without being downright unpleasant and sarcastic about it."
Allen says, “your cute little blog is a waste of bandwidth at best”
Ann thinks I'm "...copying and pasting mistakes on trees and calling it a blog" and that my readers are "mean-spirited people...who like to have a laugh at the expense of others."
Sue was really offended by the “...continual stream of sarcasm and constant poking fun...What a nasty taste in my mouth your blog left me with. Unpleasant, sarcastic and jeering at people who you obviously see as your intellectual inferiors. Won't be reading that again.”
And finally from Les, "You truly are a horrible woman, pointing out mistakes is one thing but blatantly laughing and taking the p is completely out of order."

Why?

Researching our family histories we are bound to make mistakes. Hopefully we are quick to correct them. Unfortunately some people refuse to read or think before adding information to their family trees. Some trees have been abandoned so the errors are there for eternity. Here we will laugh, mock and shake our heads at the carelessness, stupidity and/or ignorance of those errors.
All examples are taken from trees published online.
I'll also post tips occasionally, though the messed up trees are a great example of what NOT to do.
If you have an online tree to suggest for a future post please send me a link: buwtree(at)gmail(dot)com

The Fine Print

1. Copyright: Barking Up the Wrong Tree is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License and is owned and administered by Loretta Gillespie.

2. Content: Barking Up the Wrong Tree is responsible for the content of this site, not including visitor comments. Barking Up the Wrong Tree reflects the personal views and opinions of Loretta Gillespie.

3. Credit: Credit is not given to tree owners to protect the clueless. A tree owner who discovers their tree on this site should correct their mistakes so no one else realizes they were once a clickophile.

4. Accuracy and Validity: While there are helpful pointers on Barking Up the Wrong Tree a majority of posts are intended to be humorous. The disastrous trees are copied exactly as they appear on Ancestry.com. These trees are being used to show others what NOT to do.

5. Images: Attempts are made to source images used despite the fact that the trees they are taken from do not include source information.

6. Comments: Barking Up the Wrong Tree will exercise its right to delete comments which are deemed to be spam, offensive, childish or just plain stupid.

7. Liability: The content at Barking Up the Wrong Tree is not to be taken as fact nor absolute. Barking Up the Wrong Tree contains posts that are humorous and posts that are research tips. Barking Up the Wrong Tree is not responsible for anyone who cannot tell the difference between the two. The sites that Barking Up the Wrong Tree links to via hyperlinks are not under its control. Those sites are responsible for the content of those sites. If you do not find the humor on Barking Up the Wrong Tree to your taste then stop reading. If you choose instead to send an email to the owner it may be published on Barking Up the Wrong Tree and mocked publicly.

Thanks to Thomas MacEntee for allowing the use of the GeneaBloggers terms as a template.