Records Disappeared?
Records which I previously found seem to have disappeared.
I had previously searched for, found, and downloaded as xls, VICCARS baptisms and marriages in Little Horwood, Buckinghamshire, England. (I used various batch numbers, one being C14542-1).
I am now also interested to see if there are occurrences of the name MARKS in the same parish so thought I could search that name using same batch numbers (removing dash and any other variations) – but nothing is returned. I wondered if that was correct but if I leave the name blank it still returns zero results. Not even the VICCARS that I have kept in the previous xls download. It should have returned a large number of records.
I tried another tack; perhaps I could get to it by Film Number instead. I searched, Catalog. Place for England, Buckinghamshire, Little Horwood. Clicked on the Church Records then Parish registers for Little Horwood, 1568-1884. The Film/Digital notes shows the Film Number as 1042385 and if I click on the magnifying glass to search the index it returns “No Results for Film Number: 7908693”. I don't understand why the film number gets altered. I also tried manually searching directly for Film Number 1042385 but still got zero results)
(I went through the same process for neighbouring parish of Great Horwood, Film No 8061837, and it worked fine).
Something else to illustrate the weirdness of this …
If in ANCESTRY I search for say Betty Viccars with birth year of 1833, top result returns
Name: Betty Viccars
Gender: Female
Baptism Date: 20 May 1833
Baptism Place: Little Horwood,Buckingham,England
Father: Thomas Viccars
Mother: Amelia
FHL Film Number: 1042385
(***Note that matching FHL Film Number***)
But can I find the corresponding source record directly on FamilySearch? Nope.
Have the parish records for Little Horwood disappeared? Am I not understanding something?
Any Enlightenment welcome.
Answers
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You have indicated that you have been unable to find baptism records from Little Horwood England that you previous have found at FamilySearch, and which you have been able to see at Ancestry.com.
You did not explain how you were trying to find these records, but we suggest that you try the following.
1) Sign into your account at FamilySearch and then click Search and Catalog.
2) Click the link to search by film/fiche number, and it the search field that generates, type 1042385.
We followed this search path and discovered that like many of the films at FamilySearch, this specific film contains Parish records from several locations. You can click the link for the Parish registers of Little Horwood from the results page.
When we clicked to view these records, the next screen showed a camera with a key over it which indicated that there has been a viewing restriction put in place by the record custodians. Clicking that icon allowed a popup to explain that these records can be viewed from a FamilySearch Family History Center, or from an Affiliate Library.
Because Ancestry.com is a premium site, it is possible that you can view these records at their site with a paid subscription. To view these records through the FamilySearch site you will need to find and go to your closest Family History Center or Affiliate Library.
To find local Help, click the Help icon, then click Help Center and scroll down the page. The Find Local Help screen is on the left. You can enter your location there to find a center or library where this film can be viewed. We wish you success with your continued research.
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Thanks for getting back so promptly. (Friday evening here in UK and our take-away is about to arrive ...)
I think there is more than one way to get to the item you highlighted in the red box. If I go to it following your instructions I end up where you indicate (which is where I ended up via a different route).
Instead of clicking on the locked camera icon to try and see the actual record images I just click on the magnifying glass icon next to it to see the indexes. This is the bit that returns zero records when I expect full parish set like I previously did. That results page substitutes the Film Number, replacing it with 7908693. I can revert it to 1042385 in the panel on the left but it still returns zero results. (Doorbell! Chinese is here. Will try and catch up tomorrow).
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The numbers 1042385 and 7908693 refer to the same film, the first is the microfilm number, and the second is the DGS number.
I also get zero results when I click on the magnifying glass icon.
There are two reasons I can think of why there are zero results. Firstly that this set of indexes has now become only viewable to church members. I am not a church member, and only a church member can tell you whether they can see any indexed records. Access conditions to records do change from time to time.
If a church member cannot see any indexed records either, then it must be a bug.
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Martin
Welcome to the "Community.FamilySearch" Forum.
I am just another 'lowly' User/Patron ...
[ And, I happend to be a Member of the Church ... ]
I CANNOT, view; and/or, access that Film/DGS number.
FYI
Briefly ...
The, availability; and, access, to the Records in 'FamilySearch' ... comes and goes ... on a regular basis.
In other words ... There Yesterday ... Gone Today ...
The "Restrictions", placed on the, availability; and, access, of Records in 'FamilySearch', is dictated by the Record "Custodian", not 'FamilySearch'.
Those "Restrictions" are under "Contractual Arrangements/Agreements", between, the Record "Custodian"; and, 'FamilySearch', those "Contractual Arrangements/Agreements" both, "Change"; and, are "Updated", on a regular basis.
Sometimes, LATER "Restrictions", are placed on Records, by the Record "Custodian", for various (usually. "Commercial") reasons, that were once, available; and, accessible, in 'FamilySearch'; so that, they are NO LONGER, available; and, accessible - it happens.
There is NOT much that 'FamilySearch' can do about it; but, make the Records; as, NO LONGER, available; and, accessible.
'FamilySearch' TRIES to make Records, available; and, accessible, to ALL; but, such cannot always be the case.
Most of us, have 'seen' Records, that WERE, available; and, accessible, at one stage, NO LONGER, available; and, accessible, now.
Part of the reason for such a "Change" is, that the Record "Custodian" is able to charge a FEE for access to such Records themselves; and/or, that the Record "Custodian" may have also given (usually, through the payment of some kind) the 'access rights' to a "Commercial" Website; and, the "Commercial" Website DOES NOT want the Records to be FREELY, available; and, accessible, in/on 'FamilySearch'. Hence, the Record "Custodian" CHANGES the "Contractual Arrangements/Agreements" with 'FamilySearch'.
And ...
Here are some "Knowledge Articles" in 'FamilySearch':
Why did some historical records disappear from FamilySearch?
Why are there access restrictions on Historical Records?
Why do some indexes have access limitations?
https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/why-are-some-indexes-restricted
What are the image restrictions in Historical Records?
Image not available in historical records.
https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/image-not-available-in-historical-records
I know that this does not help; but, I hope that this gives you some perspective.
Brett
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@MartinSandford, thank you for clarifying that you are not having a problem finding the Parish records from Little Horwood, but that you are concerned that the indexes are no longer available to review at FamilySearch even though these records have been indexed.
We believe this is because of the current restriction that has been put in place by the record custodians.
Because there are other places to view the records and indexes, we do suggest that you do one of two things:
1) Please go to a FamilySearch Family History Center or an Affiliate Library where you can go through the film images or
2) Go to a partner site where you have previously been able to view the images and indexes through your subscription there.
Since the Record Owners are the ones who set restrictions, we do our best to support these agreements so that we can maintain the trust of those we partner with and continue to work with them on future projects. We hope that you will be successful with finding the records you wish to view at a partner site.
As a side note, please remember that all microfilms that have been digitized at FamilySearch will have both a film number and a DGS [Digital Genealogical Society] number. You can use either number in the catalog to find a specific collection.
Best wishes in your continued research.
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Thanks very much to everyone who has given up valuable time to respond to my query - and to do so in such detail. I really appreciate it.
I can fully understand that access rights might change if an owner makes changes (such as moving to a contractual relationship with a commercial third party). However, in this situation, where I have described how I have the problem for Little Horwood but no problem accessing the neighbouring Great Horwood, I believe the owner in both cases is Buckinghamshire Record Office and find it hard to understand why they would impose restrictions for one dataset but not another.
If an owner had imposed restrictions then I could understand if a search returned a result such as “We have a potential matching record but access is restricted …”, but returning “No results” when a record exists makes no sense to me. This is not just a problem for searching a batch/film, it’s also an issue for general searching. I can illustrate this with an example and you may understand my frustration.
Let’s say I’m looking for a birth/baptism record for Betty Viccars from Little Horwood around 1833. If I go to FamilySearch, Search > Records. Firstname=Betty, Lastname=Viccars, Birthplace=Little Horwood (tick for exact), BirthRange 1830 to 1835 it returns zero results. If I remove the tick for exact birthplace and update then a bunch of results are returned; typically census records etc for “Elizabeth” – but no birth/baptism record. So a researcher might reasonably conclude that either there is no such record, or if one does exist then FamilySearch doesn’t have it. But that’s not true. I know there is (or was) a FamilySearch record because I’m revisiting something I had done previously. I still have the xls spreadsheet of exported search results from that time, and the rows include hyperlinks to specific records which I can click on. So if I go here
https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NY46-VZW
I find the baptism record for Betty Viccars. So a record does exist on FamilySearch and I'm allowed to look at it (I mean this record summary, I'm not after an original image here). I can click the Document Information dropdown to see things like Film/Batch numbers but of course if I click these it takes me back to the good old “No Results” page.
I find it very surprising (and frustrating) that anyone intends for it to work like this. Anyone can look at this record without restriction by going to it directly if they know where it is. But if anybody wants to use the search facility to try and hunt down this record it will be impossible because its very existence is hidden from the search facility.
(My head’s hurting).
Again – thanks everyone that has tried to shed some light.
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On your point of there being no problem in accessing the Great Horwood records when the record custodian for both this and Little Horwood parish is (logically) the same - say Buckinghamshire R.O. - my experience points to the fact that this type of situation does arise from time to time.
Much of my research concerns Norfolk parishes and I have found that, even when parishes are in the same jurisdiction (say of either Norwich or Norfolk archdeaconries) some of these parish records have suddenly become unavailable, whilst others have remained.
In the example of Norfolk, a fairly recent FamilySearch report of "new" records being put online actually meant that ones that had become temporarily unavailable had now been restored! Whether the disappearance of a number of Norfolk parish registers had been by accident or design (they are also to be found on two commercial / fee-paying sites, I believe) I am delighted I can now access these images once more through FamilySearch.
Hopefully, you might have a similar experience and be able to view your Little Horwood records once again. On the other hand, I understand permission is required right down parish level - so if the local vicar suddenly decided he/she did not want the church's records to be found on FamilySearch the block could relate to this factor.
(BTW - I believe this is as likely to happen to indexed records as to image collections.)
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