{"id":2837,"date":"2016-06-07T16:59:53","date_gmt":"2016-06-07T16:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=2837"},"modified":"2016-06-07T16:59:53","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T16:59:53","slug":"did-ancestry-com-delete-information-from-indiana-death-certificates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/?p=2837","title":{"rendered":"Did Ancestry.com Delete Information from Indiana Death Certificates?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Ancestry.com<\/em> recently released three databases of Indiana vital records:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dpbolvw.net\/click-865524-11745137-1404254934000?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ancestry.com%2Fsearch%2Fdb.aspx%3Fdbid%3D60716\">Indiana, Death Certificates, 1899-2011<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kqzyfj.com\/click-865524-11745137-1404254934000?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ancestry.com%2Fsearch%2Fdb.aspx%3Fdbid%3D61009\">Indiana, Marriage Certificates, 1958-2005<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kqzyfj.com\/click-865524-11745137-1404254934000?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ancestry.com%2Fsearch%2Fdb.aspx%3Fdbid%3D60871\">Indiana, Birth Certificates, 1907-1940<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These certificates were digitized through a project with the\u00a0Indiana Archives and Records Administration.<\/p>\n<p>The death certificate for my great-uncle Herb contained an interesting bit of white space as shown in the illustration.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2838\" style=\"width: 530px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/uncle-herb-gone.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2838\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2838\" class=\"wp-image-2838 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/uncle-herb-gone.jpg\" alt=\"uncle-herb-gone\" width=\"520\" height=\"371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/uncle-herb-gone.jpg 520w, https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/uncle-herb-gone-300x214.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2838\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Partial screen shot on Ancestry.com for death certificate of Herbert C. Ufkes (died 7 February 1984&#8211;North Judson, Indiana) contained in &#8220;Indiana, Death Certificates, 1899-2011&#8221; and created from records on file with Indiana State Archives and Records Administration<\/p><\/div>\n<p>What&#8217;s missing? The description for this database does not indicate any information has been excised from the document.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/indiana-death-screen-shot-ancestrycomsoruce.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2839\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2839\" src=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/indiana-death-screen-shot-ancestrycomsoruce.jpg\" alt=\"indiana-death-screen-shot-ancestrycomsoruce\" width=\"693\" height=\"919\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/indiana-death-screen-shot-ancestrycomsoruce.jpg 693w, https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/indiana-death-screen-shot-ancestrycomsoruce-226x300.jpg 226w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 693px) 100vw, 693px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m conjecturing that the &#8220;white space&#8221; is where the Social Security number was typed on the document.<\/p>\n<p>It would have been nice if\u00a0<em>Ancestry.com\u00a0<\/em> had indicated that information had been deleted from the actual record.<\/p>\n<p>Did\u00a0<em>Ancestry.com\u00a0<\/em>reproduce the entire record when they digitized the images and then excise apparently omitted portion? Was it &#8220;whited out&#8221; before the images were made? This brings to mind a whole series of questions regarding the digital images\u00a0that we use of records and that we rely on.<\/p>\n<p>It also reminds one of the importance of citing exactly what one uses using the citation guidelines as suggested in\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/1H8sTPT\"><em>Evidence Explained<\/em><\/a>. My citation to this image should include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>name of holder of the actual record<\/li>\n<li>name of publisher<\/li>\n<li>title of published database in which image appeared<\/li>\n<li>date the image and database were accessed<\/li>\n<li>name of deceased, death date, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It would have been nice if the description of this database at\u00a0<em>Ancestry.com\u00a0<\/em>had indicated that some information had been excised from the record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ancestry.com recently released three databases of Indiana vital records: Indiana, Death Certificates, 1899-2011 Indiana, Marriage Certificates, 1958-2005 Indiana, Birth Certificates, 1907-1940 These certificates were digitized through a project with the\u00a0Indiana Archives and Records Administration. The death certificate for my great-uncle Herb contained an interesting bit of white space as shown in the illustration. What&#8217;s missing? [&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":[],"class_list":["post-2837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2837","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=2837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}