Do you ever search for records on FamilySearch using Batch numbers? It can sure come in handy! I’ve been researching a McGill family – Thomas and his wife, Kate Ahern. They had eight children. I searched on FamilySearch for children of this couple, born between 1870 and 1890 in New Jersey. The left side of the image shows the terms I input on FamilySearch to look for this family. Here are the first few results of my search: As you can see, there are two similar records for Catherine, born 2 June 1884[1] and one each for three brothers, James, born 1880,[2] William, born 1882,[3] and Thomas born 1878.[4] For most of these, it indicates the child was baptized in St. Patrick’s Church in Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey. But my search for McGill/Ahern children on FamilySearch only gave me birth or baptismal records for four children. What about the others? I knew there had to be baptismal records for more children but how could I find them? Let’s look at the index entry for James.[5] This record, along with the two for Catherine and the one for William are all baptismal records. If you look on the right of the screen you see “GS Film Number 1398788” and “Indexing Project (Batch) Number C01849-9.” Catherine’s and Williams’s have the same numbers. (Thomas’ record is a birth record, not a baptismal record, and so comes from a different film.) Not every record entry you find will show a batch number. The batch number relates to the indexing project, and so covers a group of related records, perhaps a set of records from a particular church, or a collection of marriage records from a county. I clicked on the batch number in the record of James McGill to find all the records in that batch. FamilySearch then automatically sets up a search with everything blank except the batch number. I got over 28,000 results, a few more than I wanted to browse through, so I also filled in a couple of the “Search with a relationship” boxes to narrow my search to those records with parents named “Thomas and Catherine.” It’s been my experience that surnames are pretty easy to “butcher” but indexers seem sufficiently familiar with given names that they’re able to pick out a T, a tall letter, a letter in the middle with some humps, followed by a couple more letters and recognize that spells “Thomas.” Alsp the FamilySearch algorithm is pretty good at recognizing given name variants, for example that "Kate," "Catherine" and "Katherine" are all the same name. With that modified search I got 82 results. I passed by the ones with surnames Bacon and Bransfield and worked my way down to the M’s. And there I found a few more kids! Edward Mcgiel, born 1874, son of Thomas Mcgiel and Kate Hanan[6] and Mary Mcgill, daughter of Thomas Mcgill and Kate Ohara.[7] I also found a baptismal record for Thomas that didn’t show up on my first search because his parents are listed as Thomas Mcgill and Kate Shearne.[8] It’s pretty easy one you see it to think about making the leaps from McGill to McGiel and Ahern to Hanan, O’Hara or Shearne, particularly when you realize those baptismal registers used to create the index were likely handwritten in cursive. I haven’t looked at the record images. FamilySearch won’t let me see them unless I’m at a Family History Center, so that’s on my to-do list. I never want to rely on just an index when there is an original record to look at. And I’m still missing records for two more McGill children, Charles and John, but hopefully I can turn them up. Charles may have been born before the family moved to Elizabeth, and I’m not entirely certain John existed – he may be one of those phantom names that pops up. How can Batch Numbers help you in your search? Depending on how many records are in the batch you’re interested in, you might search for the surnames of your ancestors and their in-laws and associates who lived in the same community. You may stumble upon some family you didn’t know about. But you can see how searching by batch number, with or without a name, might tease a few more records out of the great bounty on FamilySearch. If you have found a record by searching by a Batch Number, please let me know in the comments section below. [1] "New Jersey Births and Christenings, 1660-1980," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCVY-13X : 12 December 2014), Catherine Mcgill, 02 Jun 1884; citing , reference item 2 p 409; FHL microfilm 1,398,788. 2i] "New Jersey Births and Christenings, 1660-1980," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCVY-L31 : 12 December 2014), James Mcgill, 01 Dec 1880; citing , reference item 2 p 343; FHL microfilm 1,398,788. [3] "New Jersey Births and Christenings, 1660-1980," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCVY-P4D : 12 December 2014), William Mcgill, 07 May 1882; citing , reference item 2 p 374; FHL microfilm 1,398,788. [4] "New Jersey, Births, 1670-1980," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCY1-6LN : 8 April 2016), Thomas McGill, 02 Apr 1878; citing Elizabeth, Union, New Jersey, United States, Division of Archives and Record Management, New Jersey Department of State, Trenton.; FHL microfilm 494,184. [5] "New Jersey Births and Christenings, 1660-1980," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCVY-L31 : 12 December 2014), James Mcgill, 01 Dec 1880; citing , reference item 2 p 343; FHL microfilm 1,398,788 [6] "New Jersey Births and Christenings, 1660-1980," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCVY-632 : 12 December 2014), Edward Mcgiel, 22 Apr 1874; citing , reference item 1 p 218; FHL microfilm 1,398,788. [7] "New Jersey Births and Christenings, 1660-1980," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCVY-NYF : 12 December 2014), Mary Mcgill, 20 Nov 1875; citing , reference item 1 p 251; FHL microfilm 1,398,788. [8] "New Jersey Births and Christenings, 1660-1980," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCVY-WFH : 12 December 2014), Thomas Mcgill, 15 Jan 1878; citing , reference item 1 p 292; FHL microfilm 1,398,788.
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AuthorMary Kircher Roddy is a genealogist, writer and lecturer, always looking for the story. Her blog is a combination of the stories she has found and the tools she used to find them. Archives
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