My earlier email to the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) archivist did elicit a response and he indicated similar concerns to the ones that I had and also indicated he had expressed those concerns to Archives.com.
I'm still waiting for a response from Archives.com.
These are wonderful records, but the way they have been made available digitally does a disservice to those of us who would like to use them effectively in our research. At this point, I'm almost hesitant to blog about my findings in these records.
Color me not overly happy.
Showing posts with label elca records. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elca records. Show all posts
11 April 2013
03 April 2013
Two More Concerns About the ELCA Records at Archives.com
This will be short and hopefully I am overlooking something.
At this point, in the ELCA records at the Archives.com website, I am unable to:
At this point, in the ELCA records at the Archives.com website, I am unable to:
- easily determine what churches are in the database
- determine what time period the records actually cover
From the perspective of conducting sound genealogical research, this makes effective use of the records difficult, makes the adequate citing of research problematic, and does not easily allow me to know whom I should really expect from the database.
There's another word that applies, but I'll leave that up to the reader to discern.
Don't get me wrong---I love having these images available and the price is not bad. But the way in which these records are distributed by Archives.com to the user needs to be modified. My previous post can be viewed here.
Database Entries May Not Always be Correct-Flanagan is Not Golden
This is the screen shot for my search for Anna Goldenstein in the at Archives.org.
The location of the church indicates it is in Flanagan, Illinois. The actual location should be Golden, Illinois. In viewing just the entries on that page, I recognized enough Golden area names to know it was not a church in Flanagan. Of course seeing great-grandma's entry sealed the deal as it matched what I knew about her already--that she died in Golden, Illinois, in 1932.
So for now, this image is known to have come from a Lutheran Church in Golden, Illinois. And Golden had more than one Lutheran church--never assume a small town will only have one church in any given denomination.
The number of survivors are listed as well as the Bible texts upon which the funeral sermon was based.
But I'll have to doublecheck what church the Goldensteins attended before I make this citation.
The location of the church indicates it is in Flanagan, Illinois. The actual location should be Golden, Illinois. In viewing just the entries on that page, I recognized enough Golden area names to know it was not a church in Flanagan. Of course seeing great-grandma's entry sealed the deal as it matched what I knew about her already--that she died in Golden, Illinois, in 1932.
So for now, this image is known to have come from a Lutheran Church in Golden, Illinois. And Golden had more than one Lutheran church--never assume a small town will only have one church in any given denomination.
The number of survivors are listed as well as the Bible texts upon which the funeral sermon was based.
But I'll have to doublecheck what church the Goldensteins attended before I make this citation.
ELCA Records at Archives.com and Some Concerns
Archives.com
recently announced the release of digital versions of microfilmed records of church records in the Archives of the Evangelical Church in America (ELCA). Until now, most of us have had to rely on actual use of the microfilm to view these records.
For those of us who had ancestors that were Lutheran, this is a huge set of records. However, there are some challenges to the way these images are currently presented to the public.
At this point, these records are only searchable by name--you cannot browse the records of a specific church or view page by page. This is a serious limitation--particularly if the name for which you are looking was difficult to read in the original records or if the researcher doesn't know "all the names" already. Many of these records were in German or Swedish and there are times where that writing is difficult to read and transcribe.
The other concern I have is how the congregation is named in these records.
This is the screen shot for the "results" I obtained when searching for my grandfather:
The name of the church does not appear to be the name of the actual church--it appears to be the name of the "denomination" of which the congregation was a member when the records were microfilmed. Many Lutheran churches were members of the former America Lutheran Church. This church is actually the Immanuel Lutheran Church near Basco, Hancock County, Illinois. The database indicates this congregation was in Carthage, Illinois--which it was not. To the best of my knowledge this church was never called the "American Lutheran" church (this church was actually having services in German in 1917). This generalization of church name appears to be the case with other church records in this database. This is a serious difficulty with this database and one that I hope is rectified. If the user is already aware of where the person was a church member and is simply confirming information--then this is not a problem.
The scans are nice as shown in this enlargement from my grandfather's baptismal entry from 1917 in the Immanuel Lutheran Church near Basco (this is only part of the entry):
I did find some really neat entries in this set of images--mainly for people I already had information on but for whom I had never looked at the church records.
My great-grandmother's 1882 baptism from Dawson County, Nebraska:
The death entry for my ancestor Bernhard Dirks from 1913 in the Lutheran church records from Coatsburg, Illinois.
Bernard and his daughter Anke both died in 1913--interesting that his entry is in German and hers is in English.
Users who already have a good idea of for whom they are looking will make finds in this database. I'm hoping that by the time I've exhausted all my searches, the browse feature is activated. It'll take me a little while as over half my ancestry was Lutheran at some point in time.
recently announced the release of digital versions of microfilmed records of church records in the Archives of the Evangelical Church in America (ELCA). Until now, most of us have had to rely on actual use of the microfilm to view these records.For those of us who had ancestors that were Lutheran, this is a huge set of records. However, there are some challenges to the way these images are currently presented to the public.
At this point, these records are only searchable by name--you cannot browse the records of a specific church or view page by page. This is a serious limitation--particularly if the name for which you are looking was difficult to read in the original records or if the researcher doesn't know "all the names" already. Many of these records were in German or Swedish and there are times where that writing is difficult to read and transcribe.
The other concern I have is how the congregation is named in these records.
This is the screen shot for the "results" I obtained when searching for my grandfather:
The name of the church does not appear to be the name of the actual church--it appears to be the name of the "denomination" of which the congregation was a member when the records were microfilmed. Many Lutheran churches were members of the former America Lutheran Church. This church is actually the Immanuel Lutheran Church near Basco, Hancock County, Illinois. The database indicates this congregation was in Carthage, Illinois--which it was not. To the best of my knowledge this church was never called the "American Lutheran" church (this church was actually having services in German in 1917). This generalization of church name appears to be the case with other church records in this database. This is a serious difficulty with this database and one that I hope is rectified. If the user is already aware of where the person was a church member and is simply confirming information--then this is not a problem.
The scans are nice as shown in this enlargement from my grandfather's baptismal entry from 1917 in the Immanuel Lutheran Church near Basco (this is only part of the entry):
A few other finds
I did find some really neat entries in this set of images--mainly for people I already had information on but for whom I had never looked at the church records.
My great-grandmother's 1882 baptism from Dawson County, Nebraska:
 |
| American Lutheran Church,[sic] Gothenburg, Nebraska, 1882 baptisms, Tjode Anna Goldenstein: digital image on Archives.com. |
The death entry for my ancestor Bernhard Dirks from 1913 in the Lutheran church records from Coatsburg, Illinois.
In Summary
It is great that Archives.com has released these records to their subscribers. The indexing appears to be pretty good from my not so random sampling. But my wishes for this database are:- Specific name of the congregation as a part of the "results"
- Ability to browse the records. Having to search by typing name only is inefficient.
Users who already have a good idea of for whom they are looking will make finds in this database. I'm hoping that by the time I've exhausted all my searches, the browse feature is activated. It'll take me a little while as over half my ancestry was Lutheran at some point in time.
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