error in pulling up microfilm

RogerGWard

When I try to pull up the Virginia microfilm # 29249, what comes up is microfilm 1018559

Thanks for checking

Mike357

@RogerGWard, Yes, you are correct. When you select the camera icon for film # 29349, and then film image # 1, the film number is not what we expect. Rather than 8570219, we see film number 1018559.

This is a Catalog error. The camera icon is "pointing" to the wrong film. Unfortunately, while the Catalog remains in lock-down, there is no way to correct this problem.

Please make a note of the error and, once it is reported that the Catalog is no longer in lock-down, then report this problem again. That is probably the best way for you to be sure that it will be addressed once we have access again to make changes to the Catalog.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

What do you mean by "Virginia microfilm"?

I ask because according to the catalog, film 29249 is Vermont land records, not Virginia (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/24933), and clicking the camera icon takes me to that film number (which is digital image group 8128987) with no problem.

Film 1018559 is War of 1812 pension records from Pennsylvania, but it's restricted to FHC/AL access, so I can't check whether the link is correct for it. (But I'm just a lowly non-LDS user of FamilySearch; members may or may not get a different access message.)

Many things on FamilySearch have two things that are or can be called film numbers: the number of the actual microfilm reel (generally found on the first image on the reel), and the number of the digital image group resulting from digitizing the microfilm reel. When the records come from some other repository (such as NARA or a state archive), there's no telling what other number(s) may get assigned to the same image group.

RogerGWard

Thanks for your reply....sorry but I had a typo in the first message....the Microfilm I am trying to access is

# 29349

Thanks for any suggestions.

A van Helsdingen

The film number is 29349, the Image Group Number (DGS) is 8570219

I was able to access this from a home computer without any issues.

What do you see when you try to access these records?

A van Helsdingen

I didn't notice that! The grey bar above the image number said film # 008570219, but looking at the images more closely it is clear that they are War of 1812 records from PA, not land records from colonial VA.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

1018559 is the microfilm number for War of 1812 pension records from Pennsylvania, which is exactly what the catalog says. The catalog also says that the digitized image group number (DGS) for this microfilm reel is 8571397. I don't know whether this is correct, because the URL using this number goes to an image set that I cannot access from home.

If that film-to-DGS association is correct, then that reel of microfilm has two digitized copies, because DGS 8570219 contains those images, too. This latter image group is cataloged as film 29349, and the tab label for it is "Patents..." -- which is undoubtedly what the microfilm reel with this number on it undoubtedly contains. Unfortunately, something has gone wrong with the digitized images of this reel, because the place they're supposed to be -- image group 8570219 -- contains something else.

I'm not sure I'd call this a catalog error. It's analogous to a book in a library with a mismatched dust jacket/cover: the card catalog has the numbers and other data from the jacket, correctly, but the book itself is the wrong one. We can't check whether the books were simply switched, because the actual book is supposed to be in the restricted section that we can't access.

Mike357

Just a quick comment. @Julia Szent-Györgyi, I certainly understand that this issue doesn't jump out as a Catalog Error; however this situation used to be described in the knowledge article, "How do I request a correction to the FamilySearch Catalog?", but since the engineering lock down of the Catalog, pretty much everything in the knowledge was deleted.

I don't know how this kind of issue will be described once the Catalog is up and running; in the past, it was necessary to know that this was a Catalog error due to the way it would then be reported. All of that may (happily) be tossed once we restart the Catalog. Just a bit of trivia.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-request-a-correction-to-the-familysearch-catalog