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Is there any update on reinstating the feature to perform an "Exact" search on year range only?

Paul W
Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
October 15, 2021 edited October 15, 2021 in Suggest an Idea

I thought the developers were giving priority (or was it just wishful thinking?) to reinstating the ability, previously available in a "Search", to search using a date range, but leaving the place name blank.

For example, see https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?exactSearching=true&q.birthLikeDate.from=1825&q.birthLikeDate.to=1840&q.birthLikePlace=England%2C%20United%20Kingdom&q.birthLikePlace.exact=on&q.givenName=william&q.givenName.exact=on&q.surname=wrightson&q.surname.exact=on&f.collectionId=1493747&f.collectionId=1538354. Using these inputs and Collection filter is okay - as long as you specify the Birth Place: even "England, United Kingdom" will do. But try the search without the place name and you get the totally unhelpful "Something went wrong" page displayed.

As I am commenting here I am continuing to experiment and find that without entering a place name and without checking the box in the Birth Place field I still get the same six results! I wonder how the search algorithm is programmed so that it "knows" when "exact" results are required, even when the box is not checked?

In my example, only results for the six individuals of this name born between 1825 & 1840 are provided, whereas in other searches I end-up with hundreds of results if I don't check the "Exact" boxes!

Basically, my two points here:

(1) Please allow the previous ability to get results by checking "Exact", even when the place name is blank. (I know it "shouldn't" work this way, but it did with the old version!)

(2) Otherwise, please write some additional code to prevent the "Something Went Wrong" screen appearing in these (and other) instances. The further "small print" message of: "Unfortunately, something went wrong, and we are unable to display the search results. Try refreshing the page, or come back later" is completely inappropriate here, as it implies a temporary, technical system hitch, whereas you could refresh the page a hundred times without getting any results, of course.

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  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    October 15, 2021 edited October 15, 2021

    I have provided feedback (from the page in question), but still wanted to highlight the ongoing issues, with both the "lost" feature(s) from the "old version" of "Search Records" and the misleading "Something Went Wrong" page, which is incorrectly and unhelpfully displayed in such instances.

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  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    October 16, 2021 edited October 16, 2021

    I just received an email in response to my "Feedback" comments. FamilySearch employees still appear to be in denial about any changes. Part of the response read:

    "The exact buttons still work the same as the old ones. When you ask for Exact on a blank field, the computer looks for all occurrences of a blank field in the collection- which is rare."

    The previous version appeared to search on an "either/or" basis between the place name and date range, whereas (as stated above) the current "Exact" search just applies to the place name - and throws up the "Something Went Wrong" page if that is left blank.

    Even if we cannot search as before, at least FamilySearch employees should admit this - and make sure we don't see that misleading "Something Went Wrong" page, especially when the implication is that "something might go right" if we reload the page or "try again later"!

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