Existing Historical Records Issues
Taking this down as an announcement as it has become too difficult to keep up to date.
We will try to keep this announcement updated to help you know the issues that are currently being worked on or recently fixed.
Inaccurate place standardization. This is an ongoing problem in multiple record collections. It occurs on very old collections or collections shared by other websites that have different ways of recording place names that FamilySearch has. An auto-standardization process went through these and entered a 2nd event place that is standardized by FamilySearch standards. Most of the time, the system did this accurately. But, of course, we notice the times when it messed up. Here is how to spot the problem: you see both an Event Place (Original) and an Event Place on the record details page. For example:
When the Event Place is inaccurate, please report it. The best way to report it is to provide us the URL of the record details page. For example: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VRNC-RMG. Please be aware that the engineers work on these one collection at a time, so we can't predict how long it will take to get them all corrected.
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Batch number search in the general Record Search experience. We have recently confirmed that the batch number search is not working properly when you click Search, then Records, then More Options, then Batch Number. If you encounter this problem, please provide us with the Batch Number. If you know what record collection the batch number probably applies to, please supply that too.
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Inaccurate place shows in search results OR on record details page, but not both. This is a relatively new issue we are seeing. We can send it to the engineers for correction. Please provide us with the name of the record collection and a URL to a details page or search results page that shows the error.
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Massachusetts Record Collections with inaccurate titles:
We have 3 record collections that are not displaying correctly:
- Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915, 1921-1924
- Massachusetts Births, 1841-1915
- Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915
All of these contain birth, marriage, and death entries. We believe this happened when the folks who manage the collections wanted to break up a very large Massachusetts Vital Records collection. We reported the problem to engineering.
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Names missing in 1940 US Census Index
Some entries show "unknown" instead of a person's name. IIn addition, the record details pages lack a citation. We have reported to engineers. No need to add additional reports of the problem.
Update 1 May 2022: Engineers report that they have discovered and corrected the core problem. But they need to refresh the entire 1940 census to apply the fix. This will not happen until after the 1950 census ingest work is completed.
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1900 United States Census On a few record details pages (where you see the indexed information), the indexed information displays the same name for all household members. When you click to view the image, the image index displays the same error for all or most of the households on that page--and sometimes for many pages. This seems to be a hit-or-miss issue.
Should you find this problem in your searching of the 1900 census, please create a post and let us know. We need the URL that shows the record details page so we can quickly get to the issue. Here is an example: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6DGR-YWD6
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Problems with user corrections to indexed records: We've confirmed 2 reports in which user corrections brought about errors. Both kinds of errors have been reported to engineers. If you encounter a similar problem as you edit indexed records, please create a post to report it. Of most help to us for reporting purposes is a URL that shows the user correction and the unfortunate results. For example: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M6GQ-SKL is a record details page. We can see both the edit and that the household list is now missing.
In one instance, the user corrected the surname of an individual and selected to apply the change to other household members. On the record details page, the header shows the edited name and you can see the down arrow showing an edit occurred and see both versions of the name there. But the change was not applied to other household members. Also, search results do not show if you search for the name as it was edited.
In the other instance, the user corrected a given name. When completed, the household list was gone from that record details page. And, the image index no longer showed entries for the other household members. We can still find the other household members by searching the census, but if you click to view their record details, you are presented with the record details page for the individual whose name has been corrected.
Comments
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So Familysearch indicates 1900 US Census problems were NOT caused by internal/AI processes? (Just trying to find out what has caused that situation).
Comment: If the cause were internal - FamilySearch should be able to readily identify that an internal Project was the cause. Since they haven't been able to do so - I assume this means some external malicious actor is the cause (interesting this might be the first I have heard of).
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@genthusiast As far as I know, the engineers have not reported the origin of the issues with the 1900 census.
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Thank you so much for adding this item - and for highlighting the link regarding errors found relating to the auto-standardization process. I'm sure this will prove very useful to those experiencing problems with such specific / acknowledged issues.
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