Tuesday Tip: Beware Indexing Errors Ancestry's Index of Early Emanuel Lutheran Baptismal Records

I’ve been using the Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Church and Town Records, 1708-1985 to locate records for my ancestors. I keep running into the same error in the index for some of these records—specifically the early baptismal records for Emanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, also known as the Warwick Congregation in the 18th century.

Here’s an example from my Hacker family:

 

At the top of the page, you have “Joann Adam Hacker,” the name of the head of the family. Beneath his name is a list of his children that were baptized at the Warwick congregation, their birthdates, and for two of the children, their baptismal dates, as well.

The problem with these entries is found in the way they are indexed. Each of these children were indexed on Ancestry using the surname of their sponsor. For instance, Fridrich was indexed as “Fridrich Weidman” with “Wendel Wiedman” listed as his father. This is incorrect. I’ve added the correct surnames to the entries, but their baptisms do not show up in search results using the correct surname.

I don’t know if other records in the collection have this issue; it depends, I would guess, on the format used in the original source. Early records from the Warwick congregation listed baptisms with the children grouped and listed under their father’s name. For some reason the indexers did not understand this format—or that a sponsor, as listed, was not the parent.

This problem is not just limited to my family, but to all baptisms at Emanuel Lutheran through about 1772. The last entry that used this format was that of Susannah, daughter of Henrich Dieterich and his wife Christina. She is listed in the index as “Susannah Süss.”

This is another example of why it’s so important to not stop at the index. If a record should be there, make sure you page through the images before you give up. You might be thrilled by what you find.

• Category: Resources
• Tag: Ancestry.com, Baptismal Records