England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 - Is there a problem with the search?

JohnB1952

I have been unable to find any persons in England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 for Finningley, Nottinghamshire, England in the period 1740-1800.

As an example I found in Family Tree William Rickard 99F1-JMK as the father of Mary Rickard 99F1-JMW bap 5 Apr 1761:

But when I search England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 for the birth of Mary Rickard

in Finningley, Nottingham, England I get no corresponding result:

I hope someone can help.

Thanks

Mirevo

Thank you for the images, could you please post the URL link uou used to get into those images.

Paul W

@JohnB1952

I believe the problem lies in it being an IGI record. I have had a similar experience on a number of occasions, when the source relates to the IGI.

I thought I might have found it in a search of the Genealogies section (which includes IGI records) but - as you can see from below - I failed!

https://www.familysearch.org/search/genealogies/results?count=20&q.anyDate.from=1761&q.anyDate.to=1761&q.anyPlace=england&q.anyPlace.exact=on&q.givenName=Mary&q.givenName.exact=on&q.surname=Rickard&q.surname.exact=on

I've also tried variations of inputs, based on your search, but can't get anywhere, either.

JohnB1952

@Mirevo

Hi,

Unfortunately I have merged William Rickard 99F1-JMK since my query, but I can still find the web page from my browser history.

I have tried posting te URL but I get the following:

Here is the record for his dtr Mary Rickard LH1G-49L:

Again I am unable to post the URL.

Hope someone can sort things out.

Thanks @Paul W for your input.

JohnB1952

@Mirevo and @Paul W

It would appear that a whole batches are missing from searches.

For example Finningley, Nottinghamshire, England Batch Number C044712 Baptisms1627-1812.

If I search with this batch number, I get no results.

JohnB1952

My posts including images seem to disappear, so I will re-post the one I did yesterday;

@Mirevo

William Rickard 99F1-JMK and Mary Rickard 99F1-JMW have since been merged by me, so I will now show the record for William Rickard G7PX-BRH and Mary Rickard LH1G-49L :

I am unable to show URLs because I get the following:

So I have added the URLs as images:

Hope this helps?

Graham Buckell

@JohnB1952

I have just tried this in a number of ways and it has worked each time.

First I tried a batch number search and got the following

I then tried searching for Finningley, Nottinghamshire in the catalog and was able to access images of the parish register.

Finally I tried a search in England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 as you originally did and got the following

The one above was using Finningley, Nottinghamshire but I also tried it with Finningley, Nottingham, as you did, with the same results.

Not sure why you got different results. It will be worth re-trying. Perhaps the system was playing up at the time of your searches. Certainly it has been behaving erratically for me today but i got there in the end!

Regards

Graham Buckell

Paul W

@Graham Buckell

It will be interesting to see what results John gets, because I still still getting the below. I can't see my search criteria is any different to yours, but here is the URL to compare:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&q.anyPlace=Finningley%2C%20Nottinghamshire&q.surname=Rickard&f.collectionId=1473014

Julia Szent-Györgyi

I believe the England Births and Christenings database has been partially restricted to LDS accounts only.

Batch number search (https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&q.batchNumber=C044712): No Results Found

England Births and Christenings collection search for Mary Rickard, birthplace Finningley* (https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&q.birthLikePlace=Finningley%2A&q.givenName=Mary&q.surname=Rickard&f.collectionId=1473014): No Results Found

General search, Mary Rickard, birthplace Finningley* (https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?q.birthLikePlace=Finningley%2A&q.givenName=Mary&q.surname=Rickard): Mary J Richardson in the 1881 and 1871 censuses, no other results. Note that just to add insult to injury, the 1871 result gives "We're unable to show this record to you".

Paul W's search linked above yields no sign of the 1761 Mary Rickard.

Paul and I have in common that neither of us is LDS.

JohnB1952

@Graham Buckell

Hi Graham, thanks for your response.

I assume you are searching as a member.

I have tried the searches as you have above, but as a non member I do not get the results that you do.

Obviously this part of the England Births and Christenings is restricted to members only - why is this?

John

Graham Buckell

@JohnB1952

Yes - I was searching as a member. I have repeated the searches using a non-member account and failed.

I cannot offer you a full explanation as to why those specific records are restricted to members only. In general the Church is often limited in what access it can grant by licensing agreements with the organisations that provide the original records. These agreements can change over time. A good example is the England & Wales census records. As I understand it, non-members could only access transcripts via FamilySearch whereas members could access original images. A few months ago this changed so that members could no longer access original images directly but needed, as did non-members previously, to go to Ancestry or FindMyPast to gain access.

You can find a short video offering a general explanation at

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/lessons/access-to-records-on-familysearch

If it is of any assistance, you can gain access to all records that members can see as well as many images that even members cannot access from home by visiting a family history centre. To find the nearest centre to you, follow the instructions in the following article:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/where-do-i-find-a-family-history-center

Of course, it will be important to ring ahead, especially given limitations on operation imposed by Covid.

Regards

Graham Buckell

JohnB1952

@Graham Buckell

Thanks for the response.

Should not the contents of the IGI be available to everyone via the website?

It is freely available at my local library - so I see no need for restrictions on parts of it.

Could you please escalate this query.

Thanks

Paul W

@JohnB1952

As is discussed quite regularly here, display of records on the FamilySearch website often relates to contractual issues - and the IGI records are not necessarily exempt from being involved in these. If a record custodian (or major commercial website) is able to dictate to FamilySearch what records can be displayed (and from where - home / affiliate library / Family History Centre, etc.) then these records will often have their access status changed, especially when a contract comes up for renewal. The database in question includes records relating to a number of different sources, so its contents are subject to different contractual agreements. Hence, whether IGI or otherwise, some records can suddenly cease to be available for viewing from home (on the FamilySearch website), but still be able to viewed at other locations.

Put another way, FamilySearch appears to have no less copyright issues, just because a record is related to the IGI, and/or in the England Births and Christenings collection.

Graham Buckell

@JohnB1952

To answer your question, @Paul W mentioned affiliate libraries. These are libraries that have access to a wider range of records than users at home. It sounds like your local library has that status. For more information see

https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/familysearch-affiliate-library-faq

As mentioned in the article, although affiliate libraries have access to many restricted records, there may be some where you will need to visit a family history centre.

JohnB1952

@Graham Buckell.

I hear all that has been said about permissions and contracts.

But, if the IGI was transcribed and indexed by FamilySearch from microfilms of original records, then surely the Tanscripts and Index are the property of FamilySearch, and should be available for research.

Graham Buckell

Good point.

@Paul W, who commented above, created a separate discussion about this. One comment was that some of the links in the IGI have been found to be not functioning correctly. This may explain this issue. See

https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/425438#

JohnB1952

@Graham Buckell

Thanks for the response.

Can you please check with the "permissions people" that these apparent issues are being looked into.

As you have found, the link to Batch No C044712 works for a member search, but not for a non member.

As things stand at present I have to search, as a non member, in both Records and Family Tree to find people - this cannot be the way things are intended to work.

Thanks

John