Guidebooks and how-to materials have to make generalizations when discussing records. Otherwise print books become too large to practically print, much of the material does not apply to many people, and the text becomes too tedious to wade through.
But it is important to remember that there can be exceptions. I was reading a guidebook that indicated that in churches that practiced confirmation of young adult members that these records often just listed names and the date of the act. That is true, but there are exceptions.
Like a lovely Lutheran church in Nebraska where, for about ten years, the pastor included the date and place of the confirmand’s baptism and the names of their parents. Those were wonderful migratory clues and helped me locate many additional records. It was too bad when the new pastor returned to a “just the name and date, God already know the rest” philosophy.
Don’t let a book’s statement about a set of records cause you to not look for them. Their generalization may not apply in your specific situation. Or the statement they made may apply to the items you have located.
But you will never know if you don’t look.
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