Three sets of devices were simulated, designed, and laid out for fabrication in the EuroPractice shuttle program and then measured in-house after fabrication. A combination of analytical and numerical modeling is used to extract the dispersion curves that define the effective index of refraction as a function of wavelength for three different classes of silicon photonic devices, namely, micro-ring resonators, racetrack resonators, and directional couplers. The results of this phenomenological study are made plausible by the linearity of the extracted dispersion curves with wavelength over the wavelength regime of interest (S and C bands) and the use of the determined effective indices to reconstruct the measured transmission as a function of wavelength curves in close agreement with experiment. The extracted effective indices can be used to place limits on the actual fabricated values of waveguide widths, thicknesses, radii of curvature, and coupling gaps.