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International Genealogical Index (IGI)

The International Genealogical Index was a family history database that listed several hundred million names of deceased persons from throughout the world. Names in the IGI came from two sources.

• Community Contributed IGI (Personal family information submitted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)
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• Community Indexed IGI (Vital and church records from the early 1500s to 1885)

International Genealogical Index (IGI) - FamilySearch Historical Records

The International Genealogical Index (IGI) is a computer file created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was first published in 1973 and continued to grow through December 2008. It contains several hundred million entries, each recording one event, such as a birth, baptism (christening), marriage, or death.

The IGI is divided into the following:

Community Indexed IGI (approximately 460 million names) is a set of records transcribed directly from source material and submitted to the church. The indexed data that was part of the IGI has been organized into its original source collections from which it was transcribed and it now resides in the Historical Records system. The Community Indexed IGI search from the IGI collection details page searches ONLY the indexed records that were part of the old IGI. To do an exhaustive search for your ancestors in all available historical records (over 3 billion names that includes the old indexed IGI records) you should choose to use the search form on the home screen. To see a list of all published collections available choose All Record Collections from the home screen

Community Contributed IGI (approximately 430 million names) represents a set of records submitted to the church for which no historical record collection source is known. Some of these records came directly from original sources. For a short period of time duplication in the IGI was reduced by removing records from the indexed data when these records were submitted by the community, but the original collection annotation was lost. The majority of the records may contain data from multiple sources. To do an exhaustive search for your ancestor you should choose to search the Community Contributed IGI from the IGI collection details page and then follow the process outlined on the Family Search Wiki IGI page to determine if the record you find was part of an indexed collection