{"id":1365,"date":"2015-11-09T16:41:14","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T16:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=1365"},"modified":"2015-11-09T16:41:14","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T16:41:14","slug":"why-no-box-308-at-ancestry-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=1365","title":{"rendered":"Why No Box 308 at Ancestry.com?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States probate materials on\u00a0Ancestry.com\u00a0<\/em>are, like any other online source, prone to errors and omissions. \u00a0It’s when the omissions are intermittent that it is frustrating.<\/p>\n

As an illustration for another blog post, I wanted an image\u00a0from the 1903 era probate of Barbara Haase of Hancock County, Illinois. I’ve been through the actual case file several times, so knew what I was looking for. I also had used digital images at Ancestry.com\u00a0<\/em>of other probate case files for Hancock County, so finding Barbara’s file should be a piece of cake.<\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t.<\/p>\n

A search of\u00a0Illinois, Wills and Probate Records, 1772-1999<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0Ancestry.com\u00a0<\/em>failed to locate a reference to Barbara in the probate case files. Various entries in the probate journals were located, but I wanted the actual case file of original papers. Searches for Bar* Haa* located the journals, but not the case files. I broadened\u00a0my search for just the last name of Haa* (with Hancock as a keyword) and still not index entry for Barbara’s probate packet. I did locate the case file for her ex-husband, Conard Haase, who died at about the same time and whose estate was probated in Hancock County, so I must have been doing something right.<\/p>\n

Deciding that her name must have been read incorrectly on the cover packet for the case file, I decided to search the online digital images of the estate index to Hancock County probates at\u00a0FamilySearch.\u00a0<\/em>There she was, with an entry indicating her case file was in box 308.<\/p>\n

\"hsection\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I went back to\u00a0Ancestry.com<\/em>\u00a0and searched for only Hancock as a keyword in\u00a0Illinois, Wills and Probate Records, 1772-1999<\/a>\u00a0with 308 as the case number. Certainly I could read the list of names and determine which one was probably Barbara.<\/p>\n

There was on match from the 1890 era. There had to be more entries in box 308–after all, the “H” section of the index indicated there was one other packet in that box besides Barbara’s.<\/p>\n

In reviewing the online inventory of Illinois probate materials at\u00a0Ancestry.com, \u00a0<\/em>I discovered that box 308 was not included in their online images. Use of their\u00a0inventory of online materials is cumbersome at best. Users unfamiliar with this type of record probably won’t even bother to use it.<\/p>\n

Box 308 is simply not on the\u00a0Ancestry.com<\/em> site–even though many of the other Hancock County case file boxes are online. Why box 308 is not is beyond me.<\/p>\n

My search approach was not bad. I should have looked at\u00a0Ancestry.com<\/em>‘s online inventory first. I just didn’t think they’d skip a few boxes when so many of them are on their site.<\/p>\n

Fortunately I made digital copies of Barbara’s probate years ago when I was at the Family History Library. I’ll just have to dig out those digital images.<\/p>\n

One can’t assume that even when Ancestry.com<\/i> has quite a bit of a run of materials that they have them all.<\/p>\n

And why a few boxes were left out from the digitization is beyond me. They are on film at the Family History Library.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States probate materials on\u00a0Ancestry.com\u00a0are, like any other online source, prone to errors and omissions. \u00a0It’s when the omissions are intermittent that it is frustrating. As an illustration for another blog post, I wanted an image\u00a0from the 1903 era probate of Barbara Haase of Hancock County, Illinois. I’ve been through the actual case file […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-1365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365","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=1365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}