Image group limitations
Currently, when you do an image search, the search is limited to 1000 results.
I just selected Mississippi, it shows that there are 17395 results, but you can only look through 1000. That means 16395 are unreachable. Any plans to fix this?
Also, many image groups are mislabeled. I've selected Mississippi before to be presented with records from Kansas, etc. This is really common and I do report it when I see it.
Answers
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By "image search "
do you mean the FIND option in FS Memories? or something else?
can you send the link?
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OR are you talking about items you see inside an ALBUM. when you say "image group"
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Any FS Album should never have more than 1,000 items
It will let you load more than that into the album -- but because of performance issues - you are limited to only actually seeing 1,000. For that reason never load more than 1000 items into a single album.
the 1,000 limit also applies to items linked to a specific person record profile in Family Tree. You can only add 1,000 items to any specific profile.
but again - I am a bit confused as to where you are that you are doing "image search"
a screen shot would be nice.
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I am talking about selecting "search", then "images" and selecting an area.
For example, below see the page for Madison Co, AL. 1529 results, but it will only show you 1000. The other 529 are unreachable. Do the same thing for Mississippi and 16935 are unreachable. Yes, I could narrow my search to counties, but with so many image groups mislabeled, I already get Kansas records for Mississippi counties. I get Morgan Co and Mobile Co, AL records come up when selecting some of the below Madison records too.
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As example above, even narrowing to a county will not allow you to see all available image groups, if there are over 1000. SO many of these groups are mislabeled, and that prevents the display of the "over 1000" records that might be of real interest.
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gotcha - now I understand
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The workaround that I use is to avoid that "Images" section like the plague. I stick with the Catalog, mostly.
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Unfortunately, a "workaround" is not a fix to the multiple issues that I noted.
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First thing I'll say is that I haven't worked with the Images search function because my primary research is in Norway and their archive has all the films from FamilySearch and has digitized them and posted them online. I find it easiest to work there. But is is always fun to learn something new.
I see that if you go to the very last search page, at the very bottom of the page, you find the notice:
So this was an intentional limitation that FamilySearch is well aware of. Whether it just seemed to be sufficient or whether this search is such a burden on the system they had to limit it they don't say.
If you really want to see all tens of thousands of results at once, I would suggest you put together a well reasoned, thorough explanation of why you need more results and put it both under the Feedback tab that is on the page and the Suggest an Idea page here in Communities. An explanation of your research style and work flow would likely be helpful.
However, personally I would find needing to scroll through 17395 results to be an annoying waste of time if I know what records I want.
Looking over the page, I think I would always use the Advance Search options to narrow the images to just the types of records I want to work through:
Most of the categories now fall nicely below the 1000 result limit. Some, like Vital Records, are still quite a ways over that. But do you ever really need to see all Vital Records results at once? Won't looking at them in groups be sufficient? You do that by filtering by years:
This would require keeping some type of research log so you don't look at the same image sets over and over since the sets have very broad year ranges. Looking at 1810, then 1820, then 1830, etc, would give a lot of the same images sets. Also, as you can see, each group of images can have more than one type of record
Some of the results have the same information but different image counts, such as those for Warren county which has four results with the same year range and title. If you add up the number of images you get a total of 801. If you go to any one of these you see the notice:
Which means you can look at all four of those results at once by clicking on the Show all 801 images link.
However, narrowing by type and year still leaves a few categories that are just too big, such as Legal Records:
Currently these would require narrowing by county.
And there are two things I don't understand here. The results list shows 17 image sets that cover the entire state of Missouri for court records for 1870:
Some of these are on the first page of results but where are the rest? There does not seem to be any way to look at just those 17 results.
Also, the Places Within list states there are 124 results for Adams county, but when I click on that:
Now it claims there are only 119. Why the discrepancy? Those are two issues that should be addressed by the programmers.
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Gordon: Thank for for suggestions, they might be useful. Unfortunately, your pictures don't show up in your post. They display as a black hourglass on a blue background, like this:
I certainly DON'T want to look through 16000+ image groups. I try to narrow my search to at least county, but with so many image groups mislabeled, it's a crap-shoot. I get wrong counties and even wrong states. I've even seen Prince Edward Island info when searching for Prince Edward Co, VA.
I saw a suggestion about using the catalog. I too have done that, but some of these same issues exist there as well.
In both functions, some of the films have 2000-3000 images. That makes them slow to load and scroll through. I don't know why they couldn't be broken down into smaller chunks and labeled, but that too would further exacerbate the limit of 1000 results only when using search.
I'm an engineer who has done a lot of programming for 40 years, and a fairly advanced genealogist, so I do understand some of the technical difficulties in dealing with these old records. Genealogy is not easy when done correctly, and it has to be a very daunting task for those with limited experience or time. Having incorrect records pop up is frustrating for all.
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@Sam Sulser, are you able to fix my images so they display correctly? Also, do you have any suggestions for these incorrectly labeled image groups?
I think a big part of the problem is that FamilySearch is kind of a victim of its own success, as the saying goes. There is such a huge number of images, that even having a tiny percentage accidentally mislabeled turns in to a major issue.
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As an example to the importance of images, take a look at LHQV-SJB. My 4th great-grandfather. There are very few records that can be searched. Almost all those sources come from combing through images. The Duprees are a mess to figure out anyway-that's why there is so much wrong information out there in trees. There's a lot of "guessing" on the part of many. I'm almost positive that his parents are incorrect on FS, but I can't fix it without being able to find original documents. The man listed as his father (John) and HIS sons moved to Georgia circa 1790. Wiley would not have stayed in VA until moving to Madison Co, AL around 1812. Entire families and even neighbors tended to migrate as groups in that period of land expansion. That John names son Herod prominently in his will, no mention of Wiley, who should have been his eldest son according to trees. It was customary at that period to leave an estate to the eldest son, or at least to split it and name the sons.
Too many people merely find a name that seems to match in some record and use that as a source, and start making a lot of suppositions without a knowledge of geography or how difficult travel was during that time period. Sometimes you have to research and rule things out. People on another site list Wiley as "William" living in Greene Co, Mississippi in 1830 Census, which lists his age as 29 (I think), when Wiley is on the 1830 Census for Tipton Co, TN at age 60+ (correct). They list Wiley as dying in Feb 1840 and then cite Greene Co 1840 Census (William) plus a tax record from 1841.
Censuses and other searchable records are great. If only it were possible to index or transcribe all the images... Meanwhile, in many cases the documents contained on the films are far more useful than Censuses and other info, but they require a LOT more time and effort. That's why I wish the image groups were labeled correctly and broken down into smaller batches/timespans.
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it all comes down to resources . . .
there are billions and gazillions of images out there that FS has acquired.
instead of just waiting for those images to get indexed, sorted grouped etc which could take years . ..
FS has intentionally come up with this image browsing searching option that allows these UNINDEXED items to be made available --- even with some very annoying limitations. BUT surely better than not having acces at all.
Its all in the perspective
if you went back 50 years and had someone show you what research was like before computer, internet ect,
and you showed them what we have today -- even with its faults and shortcomings
THEY would see what we have as a miracle!!! they would be dumbfounded at what we have access to.
are there some serious shortcomings in the image search options -- most certainly -- - but the whole point of of the image section was to get things out to us -- in some format -- albeit not nearly what we would want
BILLIONS of images --- - while things like indexing and other things may not be available for years to come.
I for one am GLAD we have what is already indexed -- as WELL as the IMAGE search area -- which has some serious limitations - rather than not having it all - because no one had yet taken the time to index it.
I think so many people take for granted the incredible number of man hours it takes to do the work FS does
really nothing short of a miracle.
and they are NOT charging us a CENT!!!
I for one am not complaining. . . . rather I am involved in indexing and tagging projects so that I am part of the Solution.
GOD BLESS FamilySearch for the incredible BILLIONs of records they make available -- for us who dont even pay a dime. They deserve a lot more credit than they actually get.
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@Gordon Collett I can't see the images anywhere either. I checked some backend places that I can get to and they aren't there. Do you want to try to private message me the images? If they come through, I can replace them in the post.
Sam
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@Dennis J Yancey I agree with you. As you should be able to tell, I definitely understand the limitations. I am quite thankful for this service.
However, FS needs to redirect a few resources to fixing what records existed before 1950. They added all the 1950 Census records to images, which pushed off older records, when they KNOW volunteers are working on indexing the 1950s. And now, image search results are crowded out by 1950 Census. And they are aware of image problems, I send feedback almost daily.
Acquiring gazillion of records is admirable. But if they cannot be readily accessible, they are useless. If they are mislabeled, miscategorized, etc, they are useless. So what is the point of having them? I have seen no means to volunteer to help index or fix anything, other than via "feedback", and that goes nowhere.
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they will all eventually be made available, be indexed, be improved in so many ways - FamilySearch is a work in progress.
but again its a matter of making available NOW in some form - rather then NOT making it available at all and only making it available 20 years from now when its been indexed. I am happy we can see someething imperfect - NOW.
as massive as the task at hand that FS is involved in - "a few resources" isnt even a drop in the bucket as to what will eventually be needed. Again. its a matter of time.
We are talking about many BILLIONS of pages - ultimately thousands of billions. FS has no choice but to prioritize their efforts - but in so doing the whole point of "image search" is to make it available now - in some imperfect form - rather than only making it available in someone else's life time when its been indexed;
Thats why the Image Search was created in the first place with this intent in place.
BUT with advancing technologies, and changes I dont think we can even envision at this time - It will eventually be accessible in a much better, much more perfect format.
Just think about all the people complained about all the problematic issues of doing genealogy before the days of computers when it was all on paper and by US mail. and the problems that came as people begain to use computers - and it was very imperfect as computers were first used. . .
We have come a long way - and there is a long way ahead - each year we see advances - but each year we also see billions of more records . . . it is a monumental task beyond comprehension.
BUT Even if the Image Search was not available at all - and all we had was the Indexed Records. People from genealogical research of less than 40 years ago - would be praising FS left and right - as creating world changing miracles.
For me - Im so very grateful for the Indexed records - they are miracles - to me the image search is just a little going above and beyond to give us just a taste of what records may be available some day but arent indexed today.
Family Search is a continually evolving project - growing, advancing, evolving - I choose to judge it based on its potential - not on the imperfections that will some day begin to go away.
To anyone that looks at the imperfections of systems like FamilySearch, Findagrave, Billion Graves, and so many other imperfect systems - that are produced by the work of volunteers - I recommend they get involved in the volunteer force and work toward making things better - rather then simply judging it as a "finished product" but rather the imperfect "work in progress" but with a huge potential which it is.
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It will probably be easiest for me to just recreate my post and hope the images come through this time:
First thing I'll say is that I haven't worked with the Images search function because my primary research is in Norway and their archive has all the films from FamilySearch and has digitized them and posted them online. I find it easiest to work there. But is is always fun to learn something new.
I see that if you go to the very last search page, at the very bottom of the page, you find the notice:
So this was an intentional limitation that FamilySearch is well aware of. Whether it just seemed to be sufficient or whether this search is such a burden on the system they had to limit it they don't say.
If you really want to see all tens of thousands of results at once, I would suggest you put together a well reasoned, thorough explanation of why you need more results and put it both under the Feedback tab that is on the page and the Suggest an Idea page here in Communities. An explanation of your research style and work flow would likely be helpful.
However, personally I would find needing to scroll through 17395 results to be an annoying waste of time if I know what records I want.
Looking over the page, I think I would always use the Advance Search options to narrow the images to just the types of records I want to work through:
Most of the categories now fall nicely below the 1000 result limit. Some, like Vital Records, are still quite a ways over that. But do you ever really need to see all Vital Records results at once? Won't looking at them in groups be sufficient? You do that by filtering by years:
This would require keeping some type of research log so you don't look at the same image sets over and over since the sets have very broad year ranges. Looking at 1810, then 1820, then 1830, etc, would give a lot of the same images sets. Also, as you can see, each group of images can have more than one type of record.
Some of the results have the same information but different image counts, such as those for Warren county which has four results with the same year range and title. If you add up the number of images you get a total of 801. If you go to any one of these you see the notice:
Which means you can look at all four of those results at once by clicking on the Show all 801 images link.
However, narrowing by type and year still leaves a few categories that are just too big, such as Legal Records:
Currently these would require narrowing by county.
And there are two things I don't understand here. The results list shows 17 image sets that cover the entire state of Missouri for court records for 1870:
Some of these are on the first page of results but where are the rest? There does not seem to be any way to look at just those 17 results.
Also, the Places Within list states there are 124 results for Adams county, but when I click on that:
Now it claims there are only 119. Why the discrepancy? Those are two issues that should be addressed by the programmers.
A couple of new comments: I certainly agree that it is great that we have access to these images and a way to sort through them, but it is very important that we point out the flaws in this "work in progress" so the engineers know what needs to be improved and why. The collections they are working with are so huge that it is probably impossible for them to discover all the unintended consequences and flaws of some of the improvements they are making. We need to search them out and report them so they can be fixed.
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@KevinBaker55 I see lots of discussion from your original post, but I do have a slightly different suggestion for you. After you perform an Images search, you'll see a white Feedback button. I see it on the left margin of the page. In @Gordon Collett's screenshots, it's showing in the lower right. Look for it. Click it. Use it to express your frustration. This goes directly to the group in charge of the Images experience. They want to hear from you about what you like and do not like about the Images search experience.
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