19 October 2011

Ancestry.com--There's More to Illinois than Cook County

This is a screen shot from a search result on the 

Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths Index, 1916-1947 at Ancestry.com. The problem is that the description indicates these deaths are extracted from Cook County, Illinois, records of deaths. 


The "Learn more" about the database contains the following information:
The problem is that this information also indicates these records are from Cook County. 
One little problem. James Rampley didn't die in Cook County, Illinois. He died in Hancock County--just a little ways from Cook County.

I did a little searching, the database is for the entire state of Illinois. In fact, it appears to be the database "Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947" that is on FamilySearch. The citation Ancestry.com has in their source information is incomplete and inadequate in my opinion.

Ancestry.com needs to remember that there is a lot to Illinois outside of Chicago and Cook County. 

The good news is that if I were to use the information on James Rampley from the database to "merge" or "create" a new person in an online tree at Ancestry.com, the information does pull up correctly. That's a good thing-although I don't use the online trees at Ancestry.com myself. 



The end result is that the description of this database is wrong. The database information itself, which is pulled from FamilySearch, is correct (or at least the way the volunteers transcribed it). It is the description that indicates these records only cover Cook County.