The American Genealogical-Biographical Index, or AGBI, is called one of the
most important genealogical collections and the equivalent of over 200
printed volumes in one database. The AGBI database contains millions of
records for persons whose names have appeared in printed genealogical
records and family histories. It is now online on the Ancestry. The
database is rather like
a large Card Catalog but it can be misleading. For instance one Genealogical
article in a newspaper could lay out an entire line. Therefore if 200
Carman's are listed in the article. It would be indexed 200 times!
http://www.ancestry.com/agbi.htm
Here are the Carman Stats!
376 hits for "Carman"
32 hits for "Carmen"
24 hits for "Carmon"
2 hits for "Carmin"
17 hits for "Carmalt"
Now if we were to look at New Jersey as an example of
worth.
There were 31 hits for "CARMAN"
14 of the 31 Hits came from one Newspaper in a Genealogy Column
for 1933. Evidently a series on the line of Caleb of Cape May.
12 of the 31 hits came from the Muster lists for the Revolutionary War
You get the picture. A vast amount of the indexed material in the
AGBI is previous genealogical works and not so much in terms of
more primary sources.
As always, use caution in verifying the information you find. People
make mistakes or draw the wrong conclusions!