== Article Requires Serious Revisions == 

 The International Genealogical Index (IGI) is past tense.  It was discontinued by the LDS church for all intents and purposes in December 2008.  The article needs to be re-framed in the past tense.  A history of its publication can be found here: 

 https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/International_Genealogical_Index 

 Further, what IGI truly was has been misunderstood for many years.  When published as microfiche, it was much clearer.  IGI was an index.  But not to the records of the world nor to patron submitted information, as it is now claimed, but rather to completed LDS temple work (which came from many, many sources).  At its commencement, the Computer File Index (CFI) was one of two master clearance indexes to temple work that needed to be consulted in the LDS Preliminary Research Survey (the other was the Temple Index Bureau's card file index to completed endowments).  Each line of the fiche contained name of the individual, the event type (birth/christening/marriage or several other choices), the date, the place, and three columns headed "B" "E" and "S" (for baptism, endowment, and sealing).  Source information in the form of a "batch number" was visible on the far right hand side for each line of data.  "Batch number" guides existed that would assist a researcher in tracing back to the original temple entry documents.  In my files I have some contemporary photocopies of entire fiches (made for me by LDS reference librarians, quite legally) and many such entry documents.  It would be lovely to display some of these as examples, but they would no doubt be suppressed as WIKI images by the copyright holder, Intellectual Reserve Inc.  Perhaps Salt Lake City could be persuaded to release a portion of a specimen fiche from the early days. 

 At the time the CD-ROM edition was released, because of limitations on DOS command language in the program, the data were divided.  A choice had to be made within the "FamilySearch" program whether the search for results was to be without LDS ordinance dates ("IGI") or with LDS ordinance dates (called Ordinance Index, or "OI").  This was the first effort to separate the index from its purpose.  OI was available to the general public for many, many years.   

 Now the second effort has been made; IGI has been suppressed.  The ordinance information is no longer available to the public, but only to LDS church members.  The source information has been largely withdrawn.  The value of OI as a denominational reference tool has disappeared.  IGI, in its final incarnation, at the end containing 892,761,439 truncated records of completed temple ordinances, and with sources removed or obscured, is still available here: 

 https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/igi 

 Verification of content can be found in this source, page numbers when you're ready:   

 http://www.amazon.com/Hearts-Turned-Fathers-Genealogical-1894-1994/dp/0842523278