It seems like I am involved one way or another with the FamilySearch.org website nearly every day. Subsequently, I have plenty of time to think about all the things that my own background and experience would change or improve. Here are five things that are likely not news to FamilySearch.org, and are probably things that you may have run across even if you did not view them as issues.
1. The invisible Images section.
The historical records on the FamilySearch.org website are searchable in three completely different sections. The first set of Historical Records is found on the dropdown Search Menu. These Historical Records, https://www.familysearch.org/search/, let you search by ancestor, but are limited to mostly indexed records with some unindexed records scattered in. Of course, the number of indexed records increases every day due to the contributions of volunteer indexers, but it seems that the only available report of the total number of indexed records is recorded as "more than one billion." The number of indexed records added to the website each week is reported a blog post entitled, A FamilySearch Monthly Record Update. in the FamilySearch Blog linked from a list of web pages on bottom of the pages on the website. One thing you can see on this list is the number of indexed records from computer-aided indexes or CAI.
The second set of records are found in the FamilySearch Catalog. The Catalog contains both indexed and unindexed records. The unindexed records which are best searched by country, must be searched page-by-page unless there is some sort of index that was included with the historical record itself.
The third and last set of records, the invisible Images Section, or those that are not yet indexed or cataloged and possibly make up the bulk of all the records on the website. The number is likely somewhat more that five billion records. FamilySearch is presently using the Computer Aided Indexing to add millions of newly indexed records to the website. See for example, https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/new-records-29-october-2023. when the records are indexed they appear in the Historical Records collection.
Where are these unindexed and not cataloged record? The are piled in the Explore Historical Images section of the website that is called Images under the dropdown Search Menu at the top of each page. Almost uniformly the people I talk to about the FamilySearch website do not know this set of records exists. Most people assume that when they do a name search they are searching all the records. As I pointed out above, the number of these "invisible" records is huge, possibly well over 5.2 billion. See https://www.familysearch.org/records/images/beta
My question is why isn't there more visibility and utility for the Image records? My other question is why doesn't FamilySearch explain what is and what is not available in each of the three searches; Historical Records, the Catalog, and Explore Historical Images sections of the website? For example, the "Historical Records" could contain a notice that said that a name search only searches indexed records which constitute on an "X" percentage of the records on the website.
2. Two FamilySearch Catalogs?
Yes, you can search the "old" catalog under the dropdown Search menu, but, by the way, this catalog has not been updated for the past year. Now, there is a second FamilySearch Catalog called The FamilySearch Library Catalog. Where is this catalog? Is it somewhere on the website? Yes, but so far, I have not found a link. Here is the URL, https://www.familysearch.org/en/library/our-catalogs. Interestingly, the webpage is entitled FamilySearch Library Catalog with a link to "Our Catalogs."
Yes, there are two FamilySearch catalogs on the same website. But there are no apparent links to the second catalog except if you know the link already.
3. The missing parts of the FamilySearch website.
Sometime, just for fun, you can try searching for a topic or an area of genealogical interest on Google using FamilySearch as part of the search. Here is a link for example. https://www.familysearch.org/campaign/pioneers
Try another example, such as WWII. If you look down through all the entries you will find a lot of references to the FamilySearch blog. This is not quite invisible. It is linked from the bottom of each web page. You will find links to the blog from the Google search and to the Research Wiki, and also to the Catalog entries. I realize that there is only a limited amount of space on any web page, but maybe some of the items in the site map deserve to be linked a little more prominently. My favorite one is the England &Wales Jurisdictions Map that is also linked from the Research Wiki and is in the Site Map, if you know where to look for the Site Map. See https://www.familysearch.org/mapp/ (Yes, with two "pps")
Here are two more links to other "missing" parts of the website:
4. The Duplicate Fire Swamp.
The duplicate issue has been out-of-control since the day the FamilySearch.org Family Tree went online. It is true that FamilySearch got rid of a mountain of duplicates, but now with artificial intelligence, they should be able to get rid of the huge mountain left. The obvious duplicates for those of us who are doing English and the rest of the British Isles research are the left-over duplicates from the early extraction program where each individual was individually extracted for a baptism record, a marriage record, and a burial record. If a family has ten children (not unusual) there are three automatic duplicates not including those recently entered by inexperienced users and bulk entries from census and other projects. So ten children plus the adults can result in find 36 duplicates more or less or 35 assuming you have found one of the duplicate entries and have not just stepped off into the swanp.
5. The excessive revolving door ancestors.
Just looking on the day of writing this post. Francis Cooke, a Mayflower passenger who is completely and exhaustively documented had an endless list of changes with a few in the last week. He also has 28 sources. I can no longer do any research into my New England lines because of they are all revolving doors and I do not have the time or the energy to keep correcting people who do not need to be changed in the first place.
These issue may be resolved some day, but since I am old, I doubt I will see the day.
Hi James, you noted that there was a FS blog post about "'A FamilySearch Monthly Record Update' in the FamilySearch Blog linked from a list of web pages on bottom of the pages on the website." But all I see on the FS blog is the weekly list of new and updated collections. Is there another link at the bottom of the website pages? Perhaps it is an LDS member-only page?
ReplyDeleteYou asked about the list of new and updated collections. Yes, the only way I see the list is through a blog post but I am also on a mailing list that sends me an update from time to time. It was so long ago that I can no longer remember how I got on the mailing list. Although, when you register, under the settings you can choose to receive emails. This may have gotten me the mail years ago and I am still on the list. The list does not list newly added records to the Images section of the FS website. They are listed in the Images section itself.
DeleteYou also mentioned that there are two catalogs. I looked at the web page for Catalogs and saw the FSL-only search page link and the FS Digital Library link. You also noted that the FamilySearch Library link (the "old" catalog) had not been updated for a year. Are there items in the FS Digital Library (collections, books, etc.) that are not in the "Old" Catalog?
ReplyDeleteThere are two catalogs. One is called The FamilySearch Library Catalog, the other is the catalog that now appears on the website under the search menu. The link to both is on the https://www.familysearch.org/en/library/our-catalogs page. I haven't gotten an answer about what is being put in the FamilySearch Library Catalog. We have an open question pending with FamilySearch about the subject.
DeleteI just explored the 'new' catalog and under advanced search, there is a button for filtering. I put in only 2023 and searched. It came up with 108 items. Many are family histories published in 2023.
DeleteI hope FamilySearch opens up the OCR search to users again. That was very helpful!
ReplyDeleteSo true. The FamilySearch site should be an example of a well-put-together website, clear and easy to use. Instead I feel like I've entered a quagmire every time I try to use the site. Ir's often so frustrating!
ReplyDeleteVerrry interesting. Thanks, James.
ReplyDeleteJames, I appreciate the way you keep urging FS to improve, but is there really any hope? I have participated in several online shared trees, and in my opinion none live up to the potential of an accurate one-world tree. FS has more resources (by far) than any of the others, but it seems completely unwilling to discipline its users, so, like you, I have given up on keeping my own ancestor profiles accurate. I wonder if FS is simply too big to ever be manageable?
ReplyDeleteRegarding your fourth item, I wonder if AI is ready to tackle the problem, at least not without an army of human assistants?
Here's where I found the link:
ReplyDeletefamilysearch.org (homepage) > collection tab > ourcatalogs