FS Records Search Results List/Time Saver/Suggestion
Ok I’m not sure who to direct this to exactly but I believe by tagging @Mark Mitchell may get some positive results 🤣 (sorry Mark 😐). So I get very frustrated about the results when I perform a search only to realize that EVERY RECORD result that I click, shows me that it’s already been attached to the person I’m researching. It’s a huge waste of time 😔 I have made this suggestion on FS but the place it took me to looks old and unused? It’s called community and looks like people posted stuff there in the past, but 🤷🏻♀️i dont know🤷🏻♀️ I just want to make sure this gets seen so I’m posting to both places 🤣 (I tagged you there too Mark 🤣 jic 😆). So anyway here is my suggestion. Let me know what y’all think please😊
When searching for a person using the option in the “person” section of family tree, can you guys please add a feature that lets us know which records (if any) from the search results that have already been attached to that specific person? Then the viewer can decide if they want to click on it and take a look anyway. It’s very frustrating when I perform a search and get a list of record results, only to click on each one and find that they have ALREADY been attached to the person I’m researching. I’m not suggesting they be removed from the search results but maybe highlight those results so we aren’t wasting so much valuable research time? Thank you for all that you do, I am very grateful for this service! I appreciate your time, attention and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you 
Thank you,
Mercy Despres
X24mom
P. S. Personal info: I use my iPhone/iPhone web browser/safari for almost everything I do, I notice some features are different for users on different platforms.
@Carolyn Webber @Janell L Vasquez @Dennis J Yancey @FamilySearch Tips and Tricks @Community.familysearch.org Feedback @Family History Research
Comments
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in various places in your above message - you use the word "search" - but it is a bit ambiguous in places - which explicit type of search (where the search is executed at) you are referring to.
It seems you are toggling between the Family Tree section and the Search Historical Records section. - but maybe Im just confused. (i.e. when you refer to attachments - I get the impression you are alluding to attaching search results of the Historical Records section to a person in the Family Tree section)
with those two sections being totally disjoint for the most part.
am I wrong??
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Im really not the best person to answer this
since this is a process (adding sources) I rarely have used.
but this is one video - that may or may not be helpful.
check out:
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On a desktop browser, when searching records, there's a tree icon on the right for any records that have been attached to people in the family tree. Records that haven't been attached to anyone don't have that icon. Is that what you're looking for?
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Thanks - I didn't know that.
:-)
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I don't see that ability on my iPhone but on Samuel Bradshaw's screen clip he put a red circle around the pedigree icon, which when you click on it a summary card will come up for the person it's attached to so that you can quick compare IDs. I'm very glad they added the pedigree icon because it does save some time and I've even found duplicates and more family members by clicking on the icon and checking the person out. Way to go FamilySearch!
On Ancestry.com when searching from a person's profile page on your Ancestry trees, if they have sources already attached it does highlight them at the top of the search results. I'm not a programmer but maybe it could be possible in the future for FamilySearch to do something like that. I would assume that if it's possible it would only be possible on laptop/desktop since phones are limited in those areas.
🙂
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The icon for records that have been attached may or may not be visible on the record search page. The critical issue is the width of the browser window. As I make my browser window more and more narrow, the screen layout is rearranged. As I keep reducing the width, once the browser window gets to be somewhere around 700 pixels wide, the "View" column disappears (as does the "Relationships" column).
Web developers have to make decisions about what information to display at various screen widths. Clearly not everything can be shown on narrow screens that can be shown on much wider screens. It would be rare indeed for a user of a browser on a desktop computer to make their browser window so narrow, but the process I described above helps you understand what is happening on narrow mobile devices.
On an iPhone, the screen is sufficiently narrow that the "View" column does not appear on the record search page. This is true whether you are in the Family Tree app looking at records in a WebView, or in the Safari browser signed in to FamilySearch.org. @Samuel Bradshaw's helpful comment shows that the feature that @X24mom X24mom was asking for already exists on FamilySearch.org, but unfortunately @X24mom X24mom uses an iPhone, so the screen is so narrow that she can't benefit from this feature.
One helpful note for Android users: if you rotate your phone to landscape, you'll probably be able to see the "View" column on this page. If you are in the Family Tree app, make sure you rotate your phone BEFORE you go into the record search screen, since the orientation is locked once you get into the record search screen. Unfortunately for iPhone users of the Family Tree app, the app orientation is always locked to portrait, so you can't use this little trick.
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@X24mom X24mom I found your post over in Get Satisfaction and that is a good place to post for giving feedback for the product manager. It appears you have gotten some helpful responses here. You have gotten it to the right place and I hope they are able to make changes to help with the visibilty as I have experienced the same frustration.
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Yes - I was thinking about the same thing
that maybe the icon would show if the user simply zoomed out to allow more to display on the screen
I mean, does FS simply detect that you are specifically using an smartphone - and attempt to work differently?
OR does it simply detect the size of the display (width of browser) and make decisions based on that.
I get the impression it is just the latter.
(and can yo not simply zoom out so that more shows on the screen - and then will it act like you are on a cmputer)??
Of course you may not be able to read anything due to small screen size - - I understand that.
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"search records" - yes is where you search for historical records
"Family Tree Find" is where you search for people in family tree
There are various other searches (images, catalog, books, etc) but yes - the two above are what I was alluding to - and I did figure you were referring to Search Record for your search.
but what I was alluding to was FAMILY TREE is one section - and SEARCH RECORDS is a different section - and they are two distinct and disjoint databases or areas of the system.
Are you saying that you were going back and forth repeatedly between a person in Family tree - and a search in Search Records - so that you could ultimately link the records?
and if so what method/route were you going through (what were you clicking/tapping on (and from where) to jump back and forth between these sections)
because normally when I am going to Search record - it really has no reference once I am in the records section - which person I am expecting to link my record finds to.
In other words - doing it the way I normally do it - it is not keeping track of the person in Family Tree that I was on right before I jumped over to Search Records. by the time I am in Search Records - the system has lost track (or doesnt care) what person I was sitting on in Family Tree.
now that is what I see from my perspective - but I also wonder if there is a perspective I am not seeing that reflect what you are doing
(maybe based on the fact that you may be going to the Search Record - maybe via a different path than I do - maybe via the SOURCES option)
and I totally realize I am on the computer and you are on the smart phone or ipad.
now as others have pointed out - there is a little graphic that shows on the search records side - that lets you know if a link has been made on that record - to a person in Family Tree (but that does not necessarily mean it is the SAME person you were just sitting on when you were in Family Tree)
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yes - but based on what Alan is saying - I m guessing that how you see things (how they are formatted on your Iphone) could theoretically change - (if you zoomed out enough)
or in other word made the image as small as possible - so IF in essence most of the display did indeed fit on the entire Iphone screen (because you made it so small)
Now obviously I totally understand that to do so - - would make it virtually impossible to read the letters - - but Im wondering if when you do zoom out you can actually see the over all change in format - as the system detects the pixels being used. and doing so you might see the tiny graphic he alludes to - even though you couldnt read the text - but then you could zoom back in again. this zoom out - would only be very temporary just to see something in the computer format - then to revert back to iphone format just zoom back in.
to further clarify - on a computer one can do just the opposite - - and zoom in really close on an image - sometimes you will see that it actually changes the format of the page - to make it look like the same format as on a phone (because the system realizes it can no longer effectively do a normal computer display - so it dynamically reverts to an iphone type page format - if I have zoomed in so close that it cant display normally.
I think you can get phone format and computer format on either device - if you either zoom in or zoom out enough that it triggers a new page format.
but maybe this isnt how it works and I am totally wrong LOL :-)
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