Single field name search
It has become fairly difficult to do creative name searches in the historical records collections. When I try to just put in an unusual first name and a date it says there is not enough information. This is a problem. I used to be able to do this and not being able to do so limits the ability to find pertinent records. I also find that I get many error messages when I do searches. I am getting so frustrated that I generally give up and jump over to Ancestry. I know so many others that are doing the same thing. Even records I know are there I can't find any more. The filters are just too tight. I love FamilySearch and hate having to do this but I just don't have the time to deal with it. I would appreciate looser filters and search restrictions.
Comments
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Generally, I am able to succeed at the second attempt. If you get an error message - or a direction to input more detail - just refresh the page and you should be able to proceed with the search. However, the problem will not necessarily completely go away. If there are a number of pages of results to scroll through, you might get to around the third or fourth page, then get a further warning to input more detail. Again, just refresh the page and you should be able to continue to the end of the task.
I undertake this type of search on a regular basis - especially with females who I suspect have married (say between censuses) and therefore for whom I have no last name to input. True, I usually add at least a county of birth, or residence, and a date range, if possible. But I generally get to complete my search without great difficulty - although I might not end up with any positive result (e.g. in actually finding the single "Jane Brown" from the 1851 census, as "Jane ------" in the 1861 census!
Another area in which FamilySearch appears to now be "discouraging" searches involves the inputting of "wildcards". As with the "no last name" scenario, I often receive an error or "add more detail" message when inputting a name like "Le*vesl*y" (so I can results including Leavesley, Leevesley, Leavesly, etc.).
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Here is an example where I have just substituted one letter with a wildcard symbol - let alone leaving the whole field blank.
The first screenshot was taken after the initial clicking on "Search", the second after all I did was to reload the page. Hey presto, I didn't have to do anything (apart from the page refresh) in spite of the message:
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