Report Problems with Website features

Melissa Ann McLaughlin

Could you please add a specific place to report problems? I have found a cliche with the Find by Name feature. It is not allowing to reduce the results by exact search. I am trying to only find results with the first name Simeon or Simon (they are both checked) and I am getting results for all Lintons.

I tried to find a thread for a discussion for problems with this feature with no luck. It would be very helpful if within the community discussions there was a specific subsection for reporting problems with features of the site, or better yet, if there was a feedback button available on all features (like there is when using the new linker) we users could be sure someone is being made aware of the problem.

This is a problem I had with the feature in the past that seemed to have been corrected and now is happening again.

Paul W

This is not considered a "problem" as such, as the FamilySearch engineers / developers have been made aware of this, but appear to prefer to interpret "Exact" in a different manner to how most users would define the term. In general, the results do appear to be "prioritised" according to ones inputs, with those that do meet the "Exact" match criteria appearing at the top of the list.

With regards to reporting problems (in general), it was originally suggested to put these here (under "Suggest an Idea"), including actual bugs, from where the respective teams would pick them up. However, it is now more common to find users placing their reports under the FamilySearch Help headings - e.g., in this case the Family Tree category would be appropriate, as FIND is a feature of that part of the FamilySearch website. It is common for the site moderators to then escalate these reports to the appropriate team.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

I always use my paternal grandfather to test an "exact" name search. He had a common first name and a common Irish surname, but the combination of his middle names was unusual. Seems to be working fine:

Paul W

Well, that was the case the last time I had tried it! Following @Áine Ní Donnghaile's post, I just tried an example of my own and was surprised to get 4 out of 4 "correct" results, by checking the "Exact" boxes.

Perhaps you could post your example to illustrate (by URL or screenshot) where it does not seem to be currently working.

MrsLCJ

There is a way to do this. Call familysearch support or go in to a familySearch center to ask them to show you how to do a search for an exact name.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

@MrsLCJ - both Paul and I have shown that exact search is working.

Melissa Ann McLaughlin

@Paul W

Thank you for your answer. The feature is not working again for me as well. For about 2 weeks it was not working.