IGI Batch Numbers for the British Isles and North America

Overview
Use this search tool if you are looking for births/baptisms or marriages on microfilms of various civil and church records and want a quick alphabetical index to all the individuals recorded there.

Since the 1970's, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been extracting records of births/baptisms and marriages from filmed records in its collection. Most of these extracted records are indexed by name in the International Genealogical Index (IGI) available on www.familysearch.org. Every group of extracted records has been assigned a batch number. If you know the batch number of an extracted film for a parish you are interested in (perhaps obtained from a record previously found indexed on FamilySearch.org), you can do a search on www.familysearch.org for just that batch number and the results will be ALL of the extracted names from that record, in alphabetical order. This is a great aid to researchers for locating family members and other associated relatives.

To do this, follow these steps:


 * Go to www.familysearch.org.
 * Under "Restrict records by:" click on Batch Number.
 * Enter your batch number in the search field that appears.
 * The search results should be a list of all births/baptisms or marriages in that batch of records, in alphabetical order by name.

Indexes to Batch Numbers
There are two valuable websites that list extracted records by locality and by batch number. One is by Hugh Wallis [down due to technical issues]. He organized the batch numbers for each country, county, city and parish (British Isles and North America), so that you can easily see which batches and time periods are available for the area you are researching. Archer Software has done the same thing but, has included some batches that were not on the Hugh Wallis website.

Content
The batches numbers are for extracted christening and marriage records.

Christening records (which begin with the letter “C”) may contain:


 * Child’s name
 * Parent’s names
 * Parish name or location
 * The film number of the record the batch was extracted from (and will tell you if it is a patron record or an original parish record)

Marriage records (which begin with the letter “M”) may contain:


 * Name of Bride or Groom
 * Name of spouse
 * Date of marriage or banns
 * Parish name or location
 * The film number of the record the batch was extracted from (and will tell you if it is a patron record or an original parish record)

Using the IGI Site
Hugh Wallis’ introductory page gives you needed instructions. Once you read them, you’ll click on the country link under “Take me to the Numbers” which is further down the page. Choose the country you want, then the county, and then the parish. The christening records and marriage records batch numbers are displayed with the years they cover.

Click on the batch number you want to search. You can either use the search engine Hugh Wallis provides, or you can copy that batch number and go to the FamilySearchwebsite ..


 * At FamilySearch click on the Dropdown Search tab.
 * Click the search criteria Batch Number.
 * Enter a Batch Number. Click the "Search" button. Search results are displayed in alphabetical order by last name. The site is free of charge.

Tips
The extracted information may not contain all the information available in the microfilm record. You should also check the microfilm for other information such as birth date, occupation, names of witnesses, the parent’s residence, etc.

Batch numbers relate to records extracted (indexed) for the International Genealogical Index. Each batch number relates to a specific record and range of years. Knowing more information about what is included in a batch may be helpful for continuing your research.

Knowing the range of years covered by a particular IGI (International Genealogical Index) batch number may help you better understand what data may or may not be indexed in the IGI.

The Parish and Vital Records Index available on microfiche at family history centers has been used to identify what records have been indexed for the IGI. Unfortunately it is only available at family history centers or at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. There is a partial alternative available on the internet.