Thoughts on Ancestry.com’s Illinois “Marriage Index, 1860-1920”

Ancestry.com recently announced the “Illinois, Marriage Index, 1860-1920” on their website (it’s probably been there for some time to be honest). In reading the “about” section for this database, it becomes clear that Ancestry.com‘s  “Illinois, Marriage Index, 1860-1920” is actually the “Illinois Statewide Marriage Index 1763-1900.”This database is on the Illinois State Archives website and has been for some time. It is searchable there for free.

Why Ancestry.com chose to call this the 1860-1920 index is beyond me. There are entries in the index before 1860–particularly in those counties where records begin before 1960. Few counties include entries in the index from the 1910s. Ancestry.com does not (as of this writing) include either in the “Source (Original data)” or the “About” section the database name that is used on the Illinois State Archives website. There is also no link (understandably, I suppose) to the listing of county marriage records (and time spans) that are included in the database.

The “Original data” description for these records is phrased a little strangely. The original data is an online index housed at the Illinois State Archives to Illinois marriages. Frankly if I were using this index, I’d use the Illinois State Archives website index to search and cite that instead of this index.

Now, that said:

This interface allows users to perform Soundex searches of the data and geographic proximity searches of the data as well. That is not allowed at the Illinois State Archives website and Ancestry.com‘s search is more flexible. I’d use the Ancestry.com interface to search the data and then, armed with the spellings and other information, search the Illinois State Archives website and cite that.

But that’s just me.

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2 thoughts on “Thoughts on Ancestry.com’s Illinois “Marriage Index, 1860-1920”

    • It always pays to look at the source of the original data. See if the original publisher has a website. This is especially a good idea with databases that Ancestry.com indicates are government agencies.

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