Genealogy Chat

Please clear up a couple of things for a relative newcomer!!! Reading through threads recently (particularly 'Rude People' which has turned into a huge discussion on the accuracy and integrity of people's data and the merits and pitfalls of sharing trees) there are references to 'Primary Sources' which seem to be the building blocks of researching your tree. For us, and any other newbies, what's a Primary Source? Definitions and examples?! I have a feeling someone's gonna say 'a £7 certificate' but we'll see. And whats with IGI records? We've been taking these as gospel, but it seems they may not be!

Parish records are one of the best primary sources - actually viewing the records or seeing them on microfilm/microfiche. It's great when you can actually handle the registers where the births/christenings etc are recorded. My favourite primary sources are Family Bibles, letters, diaries etc - anything written by the people at the time. And of course wills! Wills can be fascinating (although sometimes they are disappointing if they just say 'I leave everything to my wife').

So a 'Primary Source' is something created directly at the time of the incident - a parish record entry - a will - a certificate. And something copied from a Primary Source by somebody else - whether that be another researcher, or someone transcribing registers, or someone typing up census records for input onto a website, or BMD indexes - is not a primary source?

Every time somehing is copied ( transcribed) there is the chance of an error - original , viewed with your own eye is always best. I might say my Joh Smith was born 1865, which was a slip of the finger , he was born 1856 - see what I mean?

Pease don't think I'm being rude Kate, but why don't you start another thread with your wills query? In a couple of hours when there's been a few responses you might not remember that you asked your question in the midde of a thread about primary sources! Plus others might find the replies you'll get about wills very useful......including me!!!!

I think kates Q is relevant - its where to access a primary source, after all

I just thought it would be better in its own thread - people would not necessarily look for information on how to find wills in a thread asking what a primary source is! Kate's started a seperate wills thread now :-) Do you think my definition of a primary source is accurate then?

IGI accuracy is something that always concerns me. Is it not a tenet of the Mormon religion that they research their ancestry so that they can baptize those ancestors posthumously into their Church? Do those who baptize the most ancestors get the most brownie points from the Almighty? Not a situation that encourages great accuracy or rigorous scholarship!!

Nichola You are correct about a 'primary source' as being created at the point of happening, so Certificates initially for BMD back to 1837 and start of state registration are your FIRST primary sources. Wills and other legal docs are also primary sources provided they are at least photocopied untampered and not just copied by hand as other people have said a slip of a typing finger can cause error. Similarly a Bible with its recorded Baps/births etc is NOT a primary source as it has been created from some other source and is open to error. Letters and Diaries are not really Primary Source as they are open to different interpretation and error, but are still nevertheless good meat on the bones and should be stated clearly on the tree that the info you have came from these letters, diaries and Family Bible and ALWAYS check the info in a Family Bible. The next Primary Sources are Baptisms, Marriages and Burials found through the CRO Parish Records where you can see the originals, either in the original books, or most often these days on microfilm. Remember that baptisms are mainly recorded pre 1837 and only sometimes births. Remember also that births can occur many years before a baptism. Similarly deaths are rarely recorded pre 1837, but Burials are. In most cases burial took place within a week of death.The microfilm is most often accurate as it has been filmed from the original documents, but the Transcripts may not be accurate, as they have been transcibed by hand and may be open to error, so are not really counted as a primary source. This also accounts for much info on the IGI. Other primary sources at the CRO may be Settlement Certificates, Marriage Licences, Apprentice Indentures and many other documents found in the CRO. As far as the IGI is concerned where it states the source as being from the registers, then this will have been filmed directly from the parish register, and this will be a primary source, BUT please remember that not ALL the IGI has been done like this. It is up to each one of you to see what it says on the IGI, as to whetheror not it has been submitted by a family member, or filmed from the original Parish Register. Other people's trees are just that and VERY open to error as they get passed around. It is ALWAYS good practice to get into the habit of stating the source of your information on each and EVERY piece of information that you have in your tree, so if you have 15000 names then you should have 15000 Primary Sources and if you have very few Primary Sources then you should be questioning the value of your own trees, which will be useless, and not taken very seriously unless you have the Primary Sources to back it all up. Some people may argue that even state records and parish records may be innaccurate, but that is no excuse for not obtaining these Primary Sources, because they are your only proof. Proving the State records and Parish Records are wrong is really a nonstarter. Janet

Can I just add The IGI Look for the words 'extracted record' or 'submitted record' on the page. Extracted Records are transcribed from primary sources, with the possibility of errors of transcription, but based on absolute fact. Submitted records are someone's subjective view of a 'fact' and can range from 100% accurate to complete and utter fabrication. There is no way of knowing where in the scale this record falls, and I personally ignore them completely unless I am absolutely desperate. Both need verifying. As for certificates, if I am being pedantic, which I almost always am, lol, only certificates from the LOCAL Registry Office are primary source documents. GRO certs are transcriptions and therefore subject to errors and omissions. The exception is marriage certs, and strictly speaking, the primary source of a marriage cert is the Church Register - everything else is a transcribed copy, except for Registry Office marriages, which are primary source documents. Census records, while very useful, are not primary source documents, nor are they even secondary, as they have been copied so many times, depending on where you resource them. The exception to this will be the 1911 census, which was filled in by the head of the household. OC

Excellent, thanks for that......we were beginning to think it was gonna be something like that, but always good for a novice to get confirmation from a few of GR's very own 'Primary sources' lol :-)