Update your contracts and agreements!
Sooo many of the ACTUAL documents which used to be on your web site are now grayed out.
Apparently contracts and agreements have expired - check Allen County, Indiana, for example.
On a personal level, I am making handmade scrapbooks for my cousins and not being able to access birth, death, marriage records on your web site has become a huge issue in my life.
I can get in the car and drive (GAS cost!) to my public library and use the library edition of Ancestry to obtain those very records, print them and bring them home. This makes no sense to me. If I can have access to these records through the free library edition of Ancestry, why can't your organization provide that same access to your users, which BTW, you used to do.
This has become a huge struggle.
Additionally, your new "upgrades" have made searches so much more difficult. Your web site, which, for years, has been so easy to use is now hardly worth all the trouble.
Please consider my note to you.
Kind regards,
Joyce Stocks.
Comments
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Changes in contracts are not wholly due to FamilySearch. The record custodian/owner may, for whatever reason, not wish to let FamilySearch publish their records anymore, and cancel, change or not renew the contract. This usually happens when the records go online at a subscription site such as Ancestry.com. Obviously, otherwise people would use FS to avoid paying the subscription fees, which also means the record custodian misses out on royalties.
In your example, it is likely the Allen County Clerk who is the record custodian. You should talk to them and ask why the records are no longer available at FamilySearch. If you live in the county, then be sure to exercise your right to vote in the primary and general elections for that office.
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