What is HisKi?

Got a good comment to my post How do I use HisKi? : WHAT is HisKi?

HisKi is an ongoing project to index "History books" of Finnish Ev. Luth. parishes. "History books" is a common name for the lists of baptisms, marriages and burials that parishes kept from late 1600's onwards. Some parishes have records from 1600's but most start around 1730.

The history books were transcribed in 1900's up to year 1860 and the HisKi index is mainly based on those transcriptions, being then a copy of a copy. For later years indexers have worked from original records and some have used them also for the earlier years.

Most people find Hiski very easy to use and are tempted to use it exclusively. This is not a recommended way to go, you should use rippikirja's as well. I'll write a separate post about those soon (as I now have an actual reader).

It is also a good idea to look at the original records of "History books". HisKi is an index and transcribers cane have made mistakes. And they have left some of the information out, especially godparents listed in baptisms can give useful information on the social relationships and can help with brickwalls.