Different Access Levels? Church vs. Non-church Accounts
Was hoping to deep-dive into online images of originally microfilmed pages of our Philippine province's select towns--including mine.
I witnessed how an LDS member-friend was able to access tons of these microfilmed Roman Catholic canonical records--online--using his Church account.
Now I am trying to do the same, but with my regular, free, non-Church account. And I am getting nothing.
This link shows my LDS friend links to available records per town in the province--but with my access, I get nothing.
https://www.familysearch.org/records/images/search-results?page=1&place=3398
I already tried chatting with this website's chat support. I was advised that we should have the same access level.
I hope someone can help. Thanks in advance.
Best Answers
-
I am sorry you are having access restricted. These restrictions are due to contractual obligations from FamilySearch agreements with the Record owner/custodian. Here are a couple Help Center documents about this:
If you have specific person's you are researching in these records, perhaps your friend can send you a transcript of the record (a transcript is not image access and generally considered fair use. You may want to figure out if there is some law restriction in Philippines) - if the collection is not yet indexed.
I hope at some point access will be granted.
2 -
Until a couple of years ago FamilySearch was honest about the fact that there was greater access to some records for LDS church members. However the honest wording was withdrawn, and now you are left to guess/infer that this is the situation. As a non LDS church member, you will not be able to access the records.
I think it is wrong for the Chat line to tell you that every one has the same access, when in fact that is an incorrect statement.
4 -
@Kerrebee , I believe you are giving wrong advice, based on a previous post dated 23 February transferred from the previous getsatisfaction platform.
https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/233122/#Comment_233122
"As far as getting one of the member FHL/FHC consultants going into their account to show you those restricted records, the following mandate is documented in the members version of the knowledge article ID:951 that X24mom and MaureenE123 provided:
"Consultants should not sign in to allow members of the public to access restricted images. Such sharing can violate contracts between FamilySearch and the records custodian and can cause the records to be removed from FamilySearch"
The reference is to the members version of https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/what-are-the-image-restrictions-in-historical-records As I am not a member I cannot see this, but I believe the person who wrote the previous post knew what they were talking about
2 -
You can certainly see the public article relating to Access Restricted messages: https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/what-are-the-image-restrictions-in-historical-records?articleVariant=public
I guess the main point - as mentioned above - is that these restrictions are contractual and not discriminatory. For myself, I wish the contracts allowed the same open access to all - we are researching for genealogical purposes. At the least I feel the index should be open - which brings up the importance of indexes being correct and not 'changing'. Let's hope that the record custodians feel the same way and that their contracts will allow such access to all.
1
Answers
-
Another suggestion is to visit your local Family History Centre to access the records. Often if a collection is restricted to the public it is available at a Family History Centre.
This article explains how to find your local Family History Centre https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/where-do-i-find-a-family-history-center
best wishes with getting to see the records.
1 -
@genthusiast , @MaureenE123 , @Kerrebee -- thank you all so much for your inputs!
I do hope the restriction gets lifted as it is way more convenient to just do this kind of researches online, rather than actually going to a physical family history center.
The books are actually still in the archives of my home parish (I am currently miles away though). They were microfilmed back in 1979 by the LDS. Perhaps it's high time we do our own scanning and build our own repository to make the records available to interested local genealogists and historians.
0