IGI Batch Numbers - British Isles and North America

If the information you have found on the IGI has a batch number it will be a record extracted from the original register. The letters correspond to the number of the LDS microfilm:

C = Christening records from the parish

M = Marriage records

J = Males only

K = Females only - numbers correspond to the J series for males

A batch number merely means that it is the "batch" of records which have been extracted from that particular church or chapel. A small church may only have one batch, a huge Cathedral may have many batches (but these are usually divided neatly into years).

So everyone on the same batch is an event at the same church. A different batch number for the same family just means they were at a different church or between different dates at that church.

Although you can use the Hugh Wallis site as your main means of searching the IGI for entries, you need to be aware that his site has not been updated since 2002 and it does have some drawbacks.

Using this site has the advantage that you will only find extracted records, but if you have a large parish and a common surname to find, you are better off using the IGI search facilties directly and/or refining your search (see the bottom of this page).

The very useful feature of the site is for browsing through all the instances of a name in one register or parish since you will often find the in-laws or notice other possible relatives.

It can be surprisingly difficult to know, from the IGI, just WHICH church you are looking at. That is where Hugh Wallis comes in. He has listed many batch numbers against their church name. For example - you find, on the IGI, baptism records for your lot. Let's say batch J073644, Aylesbury, Buckingham.

Go to Hugh Wallis

Go to Buckingham(shire) page.

Go to A fthen scroll down to Aylesbury, then look down the list to find J073644. This will tell you what the name of the church was and the dates of the register entries.

'The visual shows a search using the batch number J073644 but with a specific surname: de Fraine'

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