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Wonder if anybody can help me out on what I suspect is altered information from a marriage record. The info from the alleged marriage record is posted on familysearch.org.

Portion of record is as follows:

Name:   George Victor Drogo Montague
Spouse's Name:  Maria Francisca De La Consolation Iznaga
Event Date: 22 May 1876 
Event Place:    Manhattan, New York, New York 
Indexing Project (Batch) Number:M00125-3 ,System Origin: New_York-ODM ,GS Film number:1562175
citing reference ; FHL microfilm 1,562,175.

A copy of the Church Register clearly shows the surname of Yznaga and not Iznaga. NY Municipal Archives states that they cannot find this record.

Is there a way to view the record according to the citing/references above?

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    Hello, welcome to G&FH.SE! You can edit your message to include the link to FamilySearch.org -- don't be alarmed if another user adds the link, or edits your message a bit to make it easier to read.
    – Jan Murphy ♦
    Jan 27, 2015 at 23:32
  • Do you perhaps have an image of the corresponding Church Register entry that you can include in your question using the Image button?
    – PolyGeo ♦
    Jan 28, 2015 at 2:19
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    Bear in mind that while they may refer to the same historical event, the church register and the civil certificate are two different records. Records have mistakes. We can't always submit a correction or a secondary index entry. Even so, I think you are right to seek out the film of the certificate. It is better to see the original (or an image copy) than an abstract or transcription.
    – Jan Murphy ♦
    Jan 28, 2015 at 16:20

4 Answers 4

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The critical part of the information is the GS Film number:1562175.

If you go to the Family Search Catalog, paste this number into the search box labeled film/fiche number. You will see the following results:

Manhattan (New York City) marriage records, 1866-1937 ; index to all boroughs, 1866-1937 Author: New York. Department of Health. Division of Vital Statistics

Clicking through will show you the catalog entry for that search result. Part of the description says:

Physical: 1443 microfilm reels ; 16 mm.

But you don't need all 1443 reels of microfilm -- you want to know the description of the roll which is cited in your search result. Scroll down the page, or use your browser to find 1562175 -- for which the description is:

Certificates no. 1873-2880 1876 Family History Library United States & Canada Film 1562175

That tells us that of the rolls in this collection, roll 1562175 contains images of the certificates themselves (unlike other rolls which contain the index cards).

Clicking on the roll number in that page takes you to the online ordering screen. If you have a FamilySearch account, you can sign in, enter your zip code, and find out if that roll is in a Family History Center near you, or if you have to order it, and gives the prices to order the film for different loan periods.

The notes section on the catalog page may have some clues about why the Municipal Archives could not find the record:

A certificate number was assigned to marriage certificates as they were received for registration and then bound in sequential order. Marriage dates are not always in chronological order. Some marriages which happened at end of year were written on the registers in the next year. Therefore, search indexes for following year also. Some certificates may have been missing and were not recorded or microfilmed.

Perhaps this certificate was out of chronological order. Note that the certificate images on the microfilms may not be in strict certificate number order, so you may have to search the entire microfilm roll in order to find this certificate.

If the marriage was indexed by 'Montague' the Groom card index containing this marriage may be on this film roll:

Groom card index 1871 R 1869-1871 S-Z 1872-1874 A-Z 1875-1877 A-Q 1875 R 1876 R-Rimdid Family History Library United States & Canada Film 1523042

When searching for the marriage in online indexes, be sure to check the coverage of the periods that are included. The indexing is in progress and not all years have been transcribed for the online index.

Resources:

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With the guidance received from your website, I was able to obtain a copy of the original NY Return of a Marriage for Consuelo Yznaga. As I suspected, the record that was posted on Family Search HAD been altered by Jorge Iznaga in order to reflect his spelling of the surname. I do not wish to share the complete record at this time, but am attaching the entry line on the NY State Marriage Certificate which shows the correct spelling for Francisca Maria de la Consolacion (Consuelo) YZNAGA; the signature of her father A. YZNAGA del Valle from the NY Return of a Marriage Record; and the entry line of the Grace Church record, again showing the correct spelling for Francisca Maria de la Consolacion (Consuelo) YZNAGA. The Church record is what led me to believe that the posted marriage record had been altered.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Although Mr. Iznaga has developed the genealogy shown on: http://iznaga.webs.com, he has indiscriminately altered almost every entry which shows the spelling of the surname of "Yznaga" to "Iznaga", and has posted this incorrect information to countless other family/genealogy websites. I am attaching a few examples of the changes I'm talking about.enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here

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Also, be aware that in the 1870's in America and in many other countries, Y and I were often interchangeable, as the alphabet was not yet officially 26 letters, and so Y, J, I all were basically used for the same thing as was U for V, thus why a W became shown as two V's joined together.

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It seems Richard Yznaga thinks there is a conspiracy in Family Search to change Maria Francisca de la Consolacion ( Consuelo) IZNAGA 's marriage certificate. His Grace Church record claim does not exist as Yznaga. The correct is Iznaga.

With respect to spelling, there is no "Y" in Basque alphabet, "Y" was used as capital "I" to make it more visible. Also in the 1700's and 1800's it was very common for words beginning with “I” to be written with a “Y” both in common words (Yglesia, Ysla) and Names (Ygnacio, Ybarra ...). In the 1800's in America and in many other countries, Y and I were often interchangeable, as the alphabet was not yet officially 26 letters, and so Y, J, I all were basically used for the same thing as was U for V, thus why a W became shown as two V's joined together.

Basque Alphabet

Although letters C, Ç, Q, V, W, and Y are not used in writing traditional Basque-language words, they were included in the Basque alphabet for writing words borrowed from other languages that do use them.1 Y - Spanish

In the Spanish language, Y was used as a word-initial form of I that was more visible. (German has used J in a similar way.)

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