Catalog Records
This past week I was searching Caroline County Virginia Records. I was able to find a deed index and deed books under land records. When I tried to download the documents I was unable to.
I went to go back to them and they are no longer there. Some of the other records that had been unlocked are now locked. Some of the records that were digitized are now shown as rolls of microfilm.
Why were they available and now have disappeared?
Best Answers
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I don't think that many VA records are restricted. Perhaps they will come back. Do you have an Ancestry account? I usually look in both places. What year were your records from?
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I've been having the same issues as Elizabeth for a few days. I thought it was only on Virginia collections in the catalog, but it extends into most of everything in the catalog. I couldn't find one open camera icon to click on to view images -- anywhere until I clicked on a locked camera icon here: https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/362537
All but one of the films had the microfilm reel symbol. When I clicked on the locked film, I was able to see the images. Then when I hit "Back" on my browser (Chrome), all of the films were open!
Over the past six months or so, every time I go into the catalog by using the place search, then try to open one of the subject categories (like Bible records, Cemeteries, etc.), I get this error message: "We are unable to display search results due to technical difficulties. Please try searching again in a few minutes." I have to refresh the screen twice in order to get the page to do what I want it to.
I understand the catalog is being worked on, but can't FamilySearch at least put a warning message at the top of the catalog page saying the website is under construction? There is no way to know if the issues on just on my end or site wide.
Joseph
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@ Elizabeth Warnock et al. When you experience things in the catalog that don't seem to make sense, the cataloging department would like to know about it. You can email them directly at books@familysearch.org and report apparent errors in the catalog.
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Answers
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The catalog is currently undergoing a revamp. And some records may be incorrectly locked or may have been incorrectly open before.
What I've been reading indicates that we don't really know, and we can't really get an answer - probably until the catalog revamp is finished. And we don't know when that will be.
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When I find collections that have records I like I bookmark the search, the collection and the image URL. It makes a mess of my bookmarks, but such a lifesaver. I, too, have spent quite a few hours in the last week scrolling through unindexed indexes (hope that makes sense) and associated deed collections organized by book letter that are referred to by the old index sheets. Sigh. but it works.
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I think so but these are the ones I went back to but they are not the ones I was looking at the day before. There was an index and actual books you could go to and find the actual deeds that I had never seen before . The next day it was gone.
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I have never had this happen before. Maybe they were there by mistake and were taken down. I know a lot of Virginia records are restricted.
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