Genealogy Chat

I've heard years ago LDS church members wanted family members 'sealed' so they obtained information about their ancestors and submitted records to the LDS Church. Does anyone know if they submitted everyone with their particular surname in their particular home town, or did they only submit their family records? Example: surname is Mumford, from Hatfield. Would the church member have obtained records of all of the Mumfords in Hatfield, or only those who were related? Thank you, Lisa.

Lisa The problem is that we don't know. As far as I am aware, records that have a batch number (you can check on Hugh Wallis' website to find these) are extracts from church records and fairly reliable - though not all the records are necessarily there. For example, Farnham Royal baptisms is girls only - the original register had boys too. There are several examples of females only, but I don't know why. Anything submitted by an individual should be treated cautiously. It may or may not be wrong, but should be checked out. I have found some serious mathematical impossibilities, like someone getting married several years before his birth. This may have been a confusion with dates, or two separate people whom the submitter had just assumed was the same person. nell

Hi Nell. I really appreciate your help today. :~) I actually gave information about an ancestor to someone, telling that person that the connection hadn't been confirmed yet. A year later I saw my information on the LDS site -- while I am fairly positive of the family connection, there is still a small chance I'm wrong -- so mistakes do happen. However, I found information about Mumford's in Hatfield -- unfortunately submitted around the 1950's. I'm wondering if she submitted every Mumford from Hatfield, or just her ancestors. If she only submitted her ancestors, then I can confirm some things. If she submitted all Mumfords from that area -- there isn't any proof of a connection. I probably should call an LDS centre and see what they say. Thank you, Nell. :~)

Hi LDS members usually only submit their own researched family. However, the church has an extraction programme whereby it transcribes old parish records. These are the records that can be found on IGI using hugh wallis batch numbers. Joanne

Hi Joanne. The IGI records have been very helpful in confirming what my family members told me about our ancestors. Hearing that LDS members usually only submit family information brings me one step closer to knocking down a 25 year old brickwall. Thank you, Joanne.

Hiya Lisa, I can tell you that a deceased cousin of mine joined the Morman church, and he filled in quite a family history when he did. I only know because he told me about it when he tried to get me infolved;;;

Lisa Good luck with your brick wall! I've recently knocked down a brick wall that my family has been working on since late 1970's. We knocked it down in part using IGI records that had been transcribed from parish records. Isn't the internet great!! Joanne

Joanne, I'm sure what you say is usually the case, but I swapped trees with a very distant rellie through this site (when I say swapped, she gave me six names and I gave her about 200 lol). After we had exchanged, she mentioned she was a member of the LDS. A few months later I found all my 200+ names had been added to the LDS site!! She couldn't have verified it all, so was accepting my word for accuracy etc Sarah