Record Restrictions
I've been seeing the "We're unable to show this record to you" message more and more in recent weeks, but it seem to be generating at random?
It seems to only apply to certain records in a collection when performing a search of the records, rather than a restriction on the entire collection.
For example, England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988. With some records I can view transcripts without a problem, and even original images for some of them, and then others I get the above message and can't access them at all. However, if the problematic record is already attached to an individual, I can go to their PID page and view it from there without issue.
I'm finding this to be the case across various collections.
I understand that some records/collections are restricted for a number of reasons but this seems to be happening at random.
I'm quite sure I've now also experienced it happening with records I've been able to view as recently as a week ago with no problem, which leads me to wonder if it may be a glitch?
I've noticed a lot of website maintenance alert banners appearing recently and wonder if it's tied to that?
Is anyone else having a similar experience? or knows anything about it? Is it the first sign of an access rollback with licenses expiring, or something? It's very frustrating.
Answers
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I have experienced very similar issues with collections relating to Norfolk (England). However, whereas you say, "... if the problematic record is already attached to an individual, I can go to their PID page and view it from there without issue", I have found the lack of ability to view the record from an individual's Sources section is usually how I have discovered the problem!
There is probably not a single reason attached to this type of experience, but it can happen in relation to different parishes within the same collection. The continuing permission for FamilySearch to display records on its website is usually related to authorisation of the "record custodian". However, in the case of parish registers, this can reach down even to "parish level" - meaning that if the parish authorities withdraw their support for "their" records appearing on FS (or elsewhere), the "next level up" (say the diocese or county record office) has to abide by those wishes. Hence the possible inconsistency in still finding similar records for an adjoining parish to be available, when the parish records you wish to view suddenly disappear.
However, there can be two other main reasons. Firstly, I have found records sometimes reappear quite quickly: I put this down to the fact that a contract needed to be renewed in the interim period, or a genuine error / glitch in "FamilySearch" has caused the record(s) to vanish for a while. Secondly, many records appear here courtesy of a "third party" - e.g., Find My Past might have the direct contract with a record custodian, but is able to "share" the records with FamilySearch. If this arrangement is not contractual (say between FMP and FS), I guess FMP have the right - at any time - to say (to FS), "We now want to have exclusive rights of publication for this / these item(s), so we withdraw the right to view on your website". (A clear example of this is found with the indexed, Find My Past records of the 1871 England & Wales Census - millions of which are no longer available on the FamilySearch website, as they were - courtesy of FMP - in the past.)
You are correct that the records (whether by accident or design) are often still available to view from a source box / PID. Something similar occurs after adding a source whilst at a FamilySearch centre (or affiliate library). Usually, the record cannot be viewed upon returning home, but for some (indexed) collections (I will not name them in case this is "by accident"!) the full detail can still be seen from a sources section from your home computer.
As the the true reasons for this issue occurring, (in "individual" cases), one can never really be sure - as FamilySearch regards all such matters as confidential as will not reveal any specific reason a record will no longer be available. (Or, at least, will no longer be "searchable" from within the database . If an "Image Only" collection the result would usually entail a whole set of images disappearing - e.g. your parish of interest not being listed under, say, "Middlesex" or "Norfolk".)
My advice is: (a) to always download an image to your hard drive, if you feel you will need to refer to it in future, and (b) keep a regular check for items that are no longer available to view - the situation might well be temporary and the record restored almost as quick as it disappeared!
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Can you provide a link to a record that has been giving you this message consistently?
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There's another thread on this with some links Maile. This thread - https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/517716#Comment_517716
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Thanks for your detailed response, I really appreciate you taking the time. Interesting that you have had the opposite issue to me when trying to view a record via a PID's source's tab. I agree with you that there is probably no one universal cause to the issue, but your experience does support my thinking that what's happening for me may be, at least in part, some kind of system glitch...
I was very interested in what you shared about Parish authorisation, I had wondered in the past if something like that may be the case, but I was never certain and certainly wasn't aware of how much authority individual parishes had in the matter. Good to know.
Given that, I did some further general searches to see if I could get more of a pinpoint on the issue - maybe it was specific to certain parishes, or record types (Baptisms, Burials or Marriages). It seems its not.
I stuck with England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988 for continuity.
I first tried this very broad search for "Day" with an exact place match to the Parish of Clerkenwell.
I could view two (2) out of the fifty (50) hits on the first page.
Next I did the same broad search but this time for Stepney:
I could view fourteen (14) out of the fifty (50) first hits.
They all happen to be burials on the first page in both cases, but a jump to search results page containing marriages and baptisms produces much the same result.
This might suggest access is slowly being withdrawn BUT yesterday after I posted this I came across a record that I could't view and then a few minutes later, when I tried again I suddenly had access. I didn't think to save the link, unfortunately so can't post that one.
It doesn't get me any closer to figuring out the issue, but it is a bit more information...
Your advice is sound, Paul. Though currently I'm working more broadly than direct family (a process of elimination to try and break through a brick wall) so its more about the issue being an obstacle to contributing solid research to the universal tree and making sure PIDs are well sourced and avoiding the conflation of individuals, than it is about my personal records.
@Maile L I hope those links above were helpful to illustrate the issue. Additionally, here is a link to a non-viewable record at random:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:66D4-DK52
@Áine Ní Donnghaile Thanks for the link to the other thread. I had done a search before posting but I missed that one.
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Whilst I am pleased you might find this useful when encountering (other) material which is now has restricted viewing rights on the FamilySearch website, I believe this particular issue probably relates to yet another factor, as referenced by @Áine Ní Donnghaile and currently being checked-out by @Maile L.
But, as you confirm, it is well worth trying again later in some cases - it seeming to be the case (in some circumstances) of "Now I can see it / now I can't..." due to a current glitch, rather than the reasons I have given from my previous experiences in accessing material.
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I've encountered the "we can't" error as a result of index corrections. Sometimes it seems to be temporary, but other times it's persistent, such as for the last entry on this page: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9TMZ-GR8?view=index&groupId=M9DK-F7N. The Wimpffen family still shows up in searches, but none of their detail pages have been viewable since the corrections that were made two months ago.
Something about the permissions structure has gone awry, I think, but I'm not a database programmer, so I don't know what sort of thing to even look for to help them fix it.
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@Áine Ní Donnghaile, you can see the image, yes, but if you click the "View Record Details Page" link for anyone in that last family, you get the "we can't" message.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6J3W-ZFJ5
Yes, that's kind of the reverse problem from what RaniM and Paul are describing -- they've got index entries but not images -- but it's the same error page/message. (FS seriously overuses or overloads the word "record".)
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"Something about the permissions structure has gone awry" that's a really good way to put it, @Julia Szent-Györgyi. It sounds like the issue you're experiencing is in the same wheelhouse as what I'm finding, though a little bit different. So it seems the problem is multifaceted and far reaching.
To clarify, I'm not seeing indexed entries (transcriptions of original record information) OR Images when I'm performing a record search and get that message.
For example:
I can sometimes do a work around to view entry information if a source has already been attached to a PID and I try viewing the information in the sources tab for that individual.
To be fair though, I'm not sure an unindexed image can even appear in the search results without being attributed to a transcribed entry??
When I say I can "even view original images for some entries", that is only in the case when I can already view the transcribed source information.
Like so:
...I'm not sure that the issue around the images only being viewable for some entries is directly connected, but I do think it may be permissions glitch related, as there doesn't seem to be a clear pattern as to which have accessible images and which do not (ie specific to parish, record type etc).
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This has been a real pain for me when I want to attach a person to a result from a search but the record page throws "We're unable to show this record to you". There seems to be a bizarre workaround, but it's fickle. If you can "force" the person details by creating an event and setting a date but not a specific place. Then after a while the Research Help hints will eventually find the inaccesible record in the collection (I had to switch between husband and wife about five times). When you expand the suggested hint the record is visible in the RHS pane and you can attach to it. This seems to imply that the record is not inaccessible, so the problem lies somewhere in the familysearch.org/ark: page that tries to display it.
Further to the above: After doing some more experimentation, it could be as simple as the given record is actually missing. What the Research Help finds might be a newer accessible version of a record. The inaccessible one might be a "ghost" of a record that's been deleted. It also possible that it's a misleading artefact of the timeout function in the meta data grabbing wrapper.
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Same thing happening in my case to FS records of Kyiv, Ukraine in 1905-1906. Has affected around 25% of all available records (now unavailable sadly). So the contract here is between CDIAK (ЦДІАК) one of Ukraine's biggest archives and FS. CDIAK has not notified anyone of privatizing the records along with FS, so I'm hoping this is a technical issue rather? Really hope they reappear because some of these missing records are very random and appear to be from the same collections as those that have not gone missing.
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