Why are the closest hits after Sacramento, California all the way up to United States?
Searched the All Search (on the New Home Page) for
Given: Victor
Surname: Lebeau
Location: California
There are 507,107 results of which the first two pages (at 20 results per page) and the first result on page 3 (a total of 61 results) all have some reference to California.
When I change the search location to Sacramento, California, I get the same number of results (507,107), the first 6 show a place of Sacramento (county), California somewhere in the record. But the 7th record takes me all the way up to United States:
And it gives me United States locations for the next two pages (20 results each)
until the middle of the 4th page of results where it jumps back to San Diego (county), California.
As a researcher, I would want it to return results for the next closest locations such as Los Angeles (county), California or San Diego (county), California and then perhaps next closest state such as Nevada or Oregon before it jumps to a higher-level (less specific) location like United States. This is important for a researcher because if I know a person lived in a specific place, I work from that place outward, like a bulls-eye. I don't give up on a specific place and jump to the highest level location (country) for my next search. That just doesn't make sense!
Answers
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I am unable to replicate your experience in having these results returned. If I make an "Exact" search I get just 40 results. If I leave the details in the way they are carried over from the Details page I get 2,345.
Perhaps you could provide the URL that produces these 507,107 results, so we can see exactly what you are entering as your search criteria.
My experience is that I only ever receive a huge amount of results if my search terms have been so vague that I would anticipate this to be the case. As @Gordon Collett suggests in another thread, we all need to adapt to the expanding FamilySearch database of indexed records, which probably necessitates us using filters (collection type, etc.) in order to be returned with more relevant results. Searching from within a particular collection (e.g. 1910 US Census) works well for many users, rather than just making a general search - say from the link on the Details page.
I rarely search for more than one event at a time - e.g. I look for a census record or a birth record or a death record, but rarely do I try to obtain results for a mixture of types of event for one person in just one search.
Whilst you have illustrated your problem with a clear example, the best way of getting advice is definitely by providing the URL that produced this long list, so suggestions can be made on how to modify your search to obtain optimum results.
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The question clearly stated:
Searched the All Search (on the New Home Page) for ...
Which means the URL for the search conducted began at:
In lieu of URL the post gives screenshots.
General thread comment: As far as why United States results appear in the order they do - I would only guess it is because of the way the search algorithm may rank search criteria for various collections (i.e. name results in preference of place). Yes, using exact or filtering for location may help the results filter to what is desired
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Yes, sorry, I see that now - I haven't used that page for my own searches, which is why it didn't come straight to mind. Even still, I got 473,653 results, using what I believed to be Anne's inputs.
Switching to "Advance Search" and using "Exact" reduces this to 142,773 results (for me), but these numbers can be considerably reduced, of course, by selecting a particular "Life Event" and adding a year range.
Ah, but no - you are not able to do that, are you. I get the same 142,773 results regardless of adding a date and / or place.
Yes, I get your general point now, Anne - but I still find it easier to make checks via URLs rather trying to replicate through screenshots, I'm afraid!
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@AnneLoForteWillson You might want to use the Feedback button on the left side of the new signed-in home pages to report the questionable search results you get with the new All Collections Search found there. This will go directly to the team that is developing and maintaining the home page.
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