Finding children by searching for their parents on the IGI

From the Family Tree Forum Reference Library

Using the International Genealogical Index for finding Baptisms.

What is the parent search?
The parent search is an underused yet useful option offered on the IGI website. By entering the name of the parents a list of children born to a couple of the names entered will be given. This can help create a guide to family groups that you can then use in conjunction with the census and bmd index.

If you enter just the names of the parents you will see more results, if you refine the search (by year and/or location) then you will see fewer results but better matches to your family.


Finding "extra" children?
If you find an unexpected child named who doesn't appear on the census then it is useful to check the death index (there are literally hundreds of children born after one census who died before the next census was taken), these children are often missed from family trees because they do not appear on the census returns but nonetheless they are all part of family history.

The IGI Individual Record (selected by clicking on any name from the results screen) may well give further details, the illustration gives a good example, Ellen Lewcock may never have been located without resorting to hours of trawling parish records, her death date of 1821 means she never appears in the census yet the IGI search located the information within seconds.


IGI parent search.jpg










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