Town data not online
Hello,
I wish to know if there is an appeal process for Family Search to make civil data from Laurino, and Campora,Salerno, Italy available online. This is the situation: Family Search has only restricted marriage and death only records of Laurino and Campora for years 1866 to 1920. On the other hand Piaggine, and Vallo dell' Angelo , towns distant less than 4 miles from Laurino have those years available online including birth and full sets of marriage and death records.
I asked the question at one of the Family History Center and I was told is because privacy agreements. What is hard to understand is why Laurino is different from Piaggine and Vallo dell' Angelo.
I know many folks building their family trees with ancestors from Laurino and Campora that emigrates to the USA , Brazil and Argentina. The missing online data is a major stumbling issue to connect with their descendants.
I respectfully request Family Search to review the situation and make those records available online.
Thank you
Claudio Manzolillo
Answers
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I believe Italy has an across-the-board 100-year privacy rule, and the restricted films are all cataloged as having records newer than 1923 on them (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/1346102). FS enforces restrictions on an all-or-nothing basis: if there's a single restricted image on a film (or in a digital image group), then the entire film (or group) is restricted. We've been told that they're working on breaking up such films/groups and making the unrestricted parts available, but so far, I've only encountered the reverse (https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/540173#Comment_540173).
Note, though, that the decision on what records should be available online is out of FS's hands: the record custodians and the relevant laws always take precedence. Note also that FS does not disclose its contracts, which means that all of us -- including the people at that FHC -- can only guess at the reasons behind any particular restriction.
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Hello Julia,
That is precisely my point. I understand the 100 year restriction which is what that person at the Family History Center I mentioned was referring to. My message is referring to records/films from Laurino and Campora from 1866 to 1920 not available online. That is more that the 100 years you mentioned.
I was asking for help in requesting Family Search to make those records from Laurino from 1866 to 1920 be made available online as they are in the nearby towns. An appealing process if I may. I am not asking for any exception. If you are in a position within Family Search to help or you know who I should contact I will truly appreciate that.
Claudio Manzolillo
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I'm just a fellow user of FS.
I cannot find anything in the Catalog for Laurino that's labeled with a 1920 end date; the civil registers that I did find (and linked in my previous comment) are labeled as births 1866-1927, various including births 1927-1929, and various including deaths 1905-1929. As I said, FS has an all-or-nothing approach to image access, so unless they accelerate the process of breaking films up, none of these will be public for another three years at least.
If what you're saying is that those dates are wrong, then there's a Help Center article on requesting catalog corrections (https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/how-do-i-request-a-correction-to-the-familysearch-catalog).
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What you find and the link you sent is what I am referring to, Laurino's birth 1866-1927, death 1905 -1929 and Marriage 1866-1883 are on film BUT THEY ARE NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE. What I have been inquiring is how to make a request to FS to make them available online. Are you in a position to help? Do you know the person to reach to make a request? Thank you
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Those films can't be made available online. They're not public records yet, because of the the post-1923 entries on them.
There are parts of those films that are public record, and FS does now have a mechanism for locking only some images in a group, but those permissions need to be applied by a human being. Given FS's perpetual shortage of manpower, it's a slow process.
I do not know of a contact person or mechanism for asking the people working on partial-image-group permissions to prioritize a particular film. Perhaps you can try the emails in the catalog-corrections help article? I doubt the catalog people can help with this specific issue, but maybe they can point you at someone who can.
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Mod note - @Claudio Manzolillo Community is a public online forum. For your privacy, your question was edited to remove your contact information. Please see the Community Code of Conduct for more details.
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Julia,
Your statement "Those films can't be made available online. They're not public records yet, because of the the post-1923 entries on them" doesn't not reflects the Family Search records that have been available ONLINE for many years for the towns of Piaggine and Vallo dell' Angelo, i.e. birth record (Nati) 1866-1929. Please check the following links:
Piaggine: https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/2896201?availability=Family%20History%20Library
Vallo dell' Angelo: https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/2896214?availability=Family%20History%20Library
There is an inconsistency that those researching their Laurino and Campora ancestors wish for Family Search to correct.
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An error in the other direction doesn't change the fact that it is an error.
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Looking at the catalog entry, I want to clarify what we see there.
For the first film, the one with the births (nati):
The Format symbols at the left say that the births are only available in microfilm format, and not in online-digiital format. (You can actually go to the library in Salt Lake City and see the microfilm, but you cannot see it from everywhere on the internet.)
Why?
In my experience, it is due to a few reasons:
1) The reason that others have given: This film has records on it for people that potentially "still alive" and their privacy needs to be maintained. However, we users do not know what rules the Italian government placed on their records for reason of privacy. (It may be less than 100 years....) What ever the limit is, there may be people born both before and after the limit, on the same film. The initial FS digitalization project was only set up to digitize an entire film at one time. They could not digitize only the births before a certain date: they had to do the whole film together. In the future, they expect to be able to digitize part of film. Currently they cannot generally do that.
2) The entire film has been digitized, but they have not finished processing the digital images and made them available online. Making a digital copy from the film is only one part of a multi-stage process. It is possible that these birth records have been digitized, but they are somewhere in a list of digital images that still need final processing.
3) Someone made a mistake and overlooked the birth images for those two towns....
4) The catalog is out of date. It needs to be updated to show that these films are actually available.
Because the birth records up to 1929 in the nearby towns are available without restriction in digital format, I tend to think that the reason for the unavailability of the birth records in Laurino and Campora is because of reason (2) or (3). We have been told that ALL films have been digitized, but a "small percent" continue to be unavailable because they have not completed final processing. In the catalog, these continue to show a "microfilm" format, instead of the "digital camera" format. We just have to wait until they are finished processing.
If a record set is restricted due to privacy or other rules (reason #1), it usually shows a camera with a "key" above it, meaning it is locked. We can't see them unless we comply with the rules set by the record holder. (Unfortunately, we users don't often know what those rules are...) Or, we can't see the earlier records until FS generally implements the ability to digitize part of a film.
As for reasons (3) and (4): I don't know if someone on this forum will see this and be able to check if these films were overlooked.... I also understand that many parts of the catalog are out-of-date. Again, it is unknown if it is possible to get access to the films until the catalog is updated....
There are probably exceptions to this, but those are the reasons I have encountered.
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Thank you David for a comprehensive review of the different possibilities of why the records are not available. I have made similar assumptions.
If they are on film, as the icon indicates, and available at Salt Lake then is hard to believe is a restriction due to privacy. I am also inclined to think itv is primarily a processing timing issue.
As you say is quite a bit we don’t know and that is why I am reaching out to FS.
Do you have any suggestion to reach someone in a position to know and do something about this?
Thank you again for your time
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I don't know what exactly you are looking for, but are you aware of the Italy, Salerno, Civil Registration (State Archive), 1806-1949 collection? Depending on what years you are researching, there are images that can be seen at a FamilySearch Center or affiliate library for both Laurino and Campora.
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Thank you for asking about these collections! We had the restrictions checked for these 3 collections related to the Salerno jurisdiction in Italy:
- https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/2896201
- https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/2186599
- https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/1340072
There are restrictions based on contract and/or data privacy law. In the review, both were checked and it was found that the restrictions are applied correctly except for a few films that are being restricted to maintain compliance.
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