While this post is about the ELCA records database on Ancestry.com, the issues discussed here could easily exist with other databases. It is always advised when search results do not make sense to search the database for someone you have already found in the database using different search parameters than the ones that brought you to the entry in the first place.
There is an apparent glitch in some of the locations in Ancestry.com‘s datebase created from the records of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America).
We’ve written about this before, but the problem is still at least partially there.
There is an entry in the database for Wilhelmine Kraft who died in 1878 and whose death entry appears in the records of Christ Lutheran Church in Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois.
The record entry for Wilhelmina indicated the church was in Nauvoo, but apparently the database did not tag this church location as being in Hancock County. That’s where it is. It is not a rural church in an adjacent county.
In trying to find other Krafts in the same records, I was frustrated at finding no entries. To make certain I wasn’t confusing myself, I searched for Wilhelmina–because I knew she was already in the database.
A search for Wilhelmine Kraft in Nauvoo (any event) failed to locate the entry I had earlier located.
Fortunately Ancestry.com allows manual record browsing. I guess that’s what I will have to do. It’s too bad the locations are not tagged appropriately.
4 Responses
sorry to hear you had a problem with these church records on ancestry. i borrowed the microlm from up by chicago for the lurthan archives a couple of years ago as I knew what church in iowa my ancestors went to. all of those records are now on ancestry and they do have the right church location. so evidently all of the United evanglical Lutheran records aren’t wrong
joan
iowa
The records themselves weren’t wrong. Ancestry.com has somehow incorrectly tagged the location of this set of records in their database. They have digitized the entire set of the records from this church.
Ancestry also omits County names from City Directory extracts and citations, and often enough has people indexed as living in the wrong town (where the Directories include more than one location).
There are several counties in the collection of United States plat books that are tagged to the incorrect county as well.