Frustrations with Search

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Historical Records Search Page Help.

SusanNichol1

1. The first window you see is the Search for a Person. It gives the impression that you cannot search records. It took me a while to learn to scroll down to see the rest of the window. Reduce the graphics to move up the Search Collections box.
2. The Search Collections box does not allow me to search for a very specific record by title, or film number, such as Allegheny County Deeds v.56 FHL#1497882.
3. I wanted to find the 1830 census for Pennsylvania, Allegheny County Series M19 Roll 144 p. 268. But the results only gave me the 1860 census. It would be nice to be able to see what all the censuses you have for a state and to be able to search in as much detail as I want.
4. The professional librarian in me says you need to put all the titles of all the records in one specific search area, probably the card catalog. even if they are not yet indexed. Your card catalog is wonderful but why are the items in Historical Records not included in the card catalog? You should also include all the items in Images in the same search page.
5. Since you cannot search for all records in the same place, it makes one think you don't have the item online (which is not true.) It is very inconvenient to know you have an image of a record (I have a printout of it) with its name, film # and page # but I go in circles trying to find it, open it and attach it to one of my relatives. This system is very clunky and very frustrating.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

@SusanNichol1, I can't figure out what part of FS you're talking about.

It can't be Search - Records, because the first thing on that page, in large yellow letters on a dark background, is "Search Historical Records." That cannot possibly "give the impression that you cannot search records".

It can't be Search - Images, because that starts with a place search, and doesn't offer anything like "Search for a Person".

It can't be Search - Family Tree (otherwise known as Find), because that doesn't have anything to do with collections. Ditto for Genealogies.

So where are you actually starting from?

Áine Ní Donnghaile

Maybe the All Collections Search?

SusanNichol1

Search historical records under the records tab.

The 2 comments replying to my frustration show how big this problem is. We need one search screen for Search Historical Records, Explore Historical Images, Books, Genealogies, etc.

Miss Jessie

on the home page see the "All Collections Search"

https://www.familysearch.org/search/all-collections/

Áine Ní Donnghaile

@SusanNichol1

I'm sorry you are frustrated. Most of us are "just" other users of the website. We would love to help, but we need details to try.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

SusanNichol1 wrote: "We need one search screen for Search Historical Records, Explore Historical Images, Books, Genealogies, etc."

That'd be like combining the phone book and the library's card catalog.