{"id":1203,"date":"2015-10-02T18:04:41","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T18:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=1203"},"modified":"2015-10-02T18:04:41","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T18:04:41","slug":"thoughts-on-ancestry-coms-illinois-marriage-index-1860-1920","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=1203","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Ancestry.com&#8217;s Illinois &#8220;Marriage Index, 1860-1920&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Ancestry.com<\/em> recently announced the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.kqzyfj.com\/click-865524-10470501-1404254934000?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ancestry.com%2Fsearch%2Fdb.aspx%3Fdbid%3D60984\">Illinois, Marriage Index, 1860-1920<\/a>&#8221; on their website (it&#8217;s probably been there for some time to be honest). In reading the &#8220;about&#8221; section for this database, it becomes clear that <em>Ancestry.com<\/em>&#8216;s\u00a0 &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.kqzyfj.com\/click-865524-10470501-1404254934000?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ancestry.com%2Fsearch%2Fdb.aspx%3Fdbid%3D60984\">Illinois, Marriage Index, 1860-1920<\/a>&#8221; is actually the &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cyberdriveillinois.com\/departments\/archives\/databases\/marriage.html\">Illinois Statewide Marriage Index 1763-1900.&#8221;<\/a>This database is on the <em>Illinois State Archives <\/em>website and has been for some time. It is searchable there for free.<\/p>\n<p>Why <em>Ancestry.com <\/em>chose to call this the 1860-1920 index is beyond me. There are entries in the index before 1860&#8211;particularly in those counties where records begin before 1960. Few counties include entries in the index from the 1910s. <em>Ancestry.com<\/em> does not (as of this writing) include either in the &#8220;Source (Original data)&#8221; or the &#8220;About&#8221; section the database name that is used on the <em>Illinois State Archives <\/em>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.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;Original data&#8221; 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&#8217;d use the <em>Illinois State Archives <\/em>website index to search and cite that instead of this index.<\/p>\n<p>Now, that said:<\/p>\n<p>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 <em>Illinois State Archives <\/em>website and <em>Ancestry.com<\/em>&#8216;s search is more flexible. I&#8217;d use the <em>Ancestry.com<\/em> interface to search the data and then, armed with the spellings and other information, search the <em>Illinois State Archives <\/em>website and cite that.<\/p>\n<p>But that&#8217;s just me.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/titles.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1204 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/titles.jpg\" alt=\"titles\" width=\"669\" height=\"785\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/titles.jpg 669w, https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/titles-256x300.jpg 256w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 669px) 100vw, 669px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ancestry.com recently announced the &#8220;Illinois, Marriage Index, 1860-1920&#8221; on their website (it&#8217;s probably been there for some time to be honest). In reading the &#8220;about&#8221; section for this database, it becomes clear that Ancestry.com&#8216;s\u00a0 &#8220;Illinois, Marriage Index, 1860-1920&#8221; is actually the &#8220;Illinois Statewide Marriage Index 1763-1900.&#8221;This database is on the Illinois State Archives website and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,140],"class_list":["post-1203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ancestry-com","tag-illinois-state-marriage-index"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}