Change your search engine
It's not responsive to what researchers want.
The previous search engine was much much better.
Now a search produces 245 pages of duplicated material from multiple source's,
that wastes the time of the searcher.
It becomes apparent that you no longer want to be of help to those who are truly
seeking answers to legitimate questions.
Comments
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There have been many such complaints made here along similar lines. Unfortunately - as in your case - an example of the type of search being made is rarely provided. There should always be ways of getting considerably less results from a search than you are getting at present. You can use "Exact" searches, filter on particular types of record (e.g. "Census"), etc. - no way you should end-up with 245 pages of results.
However, if a record has been indexed multiple times (say from different original sources) you will always be presented with maybe four or five results for a record which appears to be exactly the same. It was once the intention of FamilySearch to cut down on some of these "duplicates" by "retiring" some of them. This has proved to be a very difficult task, as the original records just might prove to contain slightly different data and this approach could lead to the "more useful" record being the one removed from the website.
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-- https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/tag/about-familysearch/whats-new-at-familysearch
Just in January 2023 there the FamilySearch blog had five entries regarding new record collections. Combined this was a notice of about 20 million new records in just one month. I'm starting to think that most of the complaints about the search engine are because people still try to use just the main search form. The full database has just gotten so massive that that just does not work anymore and never will again. People have got to learn how to use the filters and search limiting criteria if they expect to have reasonable results.
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@Phil Sifers Thank you for sharing your experience using the Search feature. It can be frustrating when you get so many duplicate results. We are very interested in helping you and improving the search feature for everyone.
It would be helpful if you could provide us with some additional context to your feedback. For example, can you explain what you feel researchers are looking for and in what way the old search engine was better.
It would also be helpful to know your search terms so that we can communicate your problem to the engineers more effectively. Sharing screenshots is always helpful. We are looking forward to hearing from you so that we can troubleshoot your problem and improve the search feature in the future.
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