Since I posted my message suggesting a way of obtaining batch numbers for the
LDS IGI, I have had a large number of e-mail's off list asking What are batch
numbers? What is LDS? and what is IGI?
I will attempt to answer all those queries here rather than individually,
trusting that my imperfect answers will be corrected by those more
knowledgeable.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as LDS or the
Mormons) was established in the 1830s in America.
One of the problems that "new" religions have is the question "if this is
the
truth that will lead to salvation, does this mean that my poor old Dad who
died before this was revealed is condemned to Hell and Damnation?"
The Mormon answer is "no the dead can also be baptised into this new faith"
and thus John Wesley is no longer a Wesleyan, John Calvin is no longer a
Calvinist and Luther is no longer a Lutheran because they have all received a
Mormon baptism of the dead. (In the interest of simplicity I shan't mention
Cardinal Newman!!)
So that they can baptise their ancestors into their warped religion the
Mormons have amassed tons of genealogical information in to their
International Genealogical Index (IGI)
This information includes Parish Registers. Each bit of information they have
gathered is given an index number called a BATCH NUMBER. So, for example,
they have copied the early baptism records of Llanfihangel y Penant and
recorded it as batch number C057441.
If you have ancestors called EDWARDS who came from, Llanfihangel y Penant
knowing this number will help you search the LDS website (
familyseach.com)
for all EDWARDS baptised in that parish.
It must be noted that only a small proportion of IGI information has been
downloaded onto the
familysearch.com website, and as the Mormons are on a big
membership drive in South America they are concentrating on adding South
American Information into their website rather than information which will be
use to Welsh researchers. But knowing the batch numbers can, occasionally,
help trace your Welsh family tree. Which is why I suggested a way of finding
them.
Again, I hope that this is both clear ands useful.
Regards
Alwyn