Unable to access Record Hint

sgsreader

There is a Record Hint for William Hatcher McGuire, GSWZ-W23, that gives the following error when I click on it:

The source is from GenealogyBank which I have a subscription to. How can I access it?

Áine Ní Donnghaile

There have been a few reports of errors popping up for GenealogyBank obituaries. I generally find that I can view the obit by searching directly on GBank, to which I also have a sub. https://www.genealogybank.com/nbshare/AC01100711225640281771719104879

mayimagpie

I have this on multiple ancestors and it's driving me nuts! There isn't an option to dismiss these hints and my great-grandmother has had one for months. I understand they are "restricted" but just give me the dang "dismiss" button! 😂

Áine Ní Donnghaile

Dismissing the match would be inappropriate. The hinting algorithm "learns" from what we accept or dismiss. Dismissing it would teach the algorithm the hint is not for that person/profile.

sgsreader

Why have it come up at all if there is no way to get to it? Yes, I can search for my ancestor on Genealogybank myself since I have a subscription - but the hint doesn't tell me what kind of record it is.

I don't know what information to put in the search box at Genealogybank because I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for. In this case it tells me it is from: United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, Births, and Marriages 1980-2014

Am I looking for his obit? His birth record? His marriage record? I did a search for him by name and birthdate and pulled up nothing. He died in 1991 so it is likely a death record, but when I expanded the time period to 1900 to 1991, I did find some articles dated between 1925 and 1975, but nothing between 1980 and 2014. I don't pull up anything if I change the date range to 1987-1991. What search criteria did you put in to pull up the obituary that you found?

Even if I find it, how do I know if it's the article the hint was referring to and identify it at Genealogybank.com?

Áine Ní Donnghaile

I believe that it may be a programming issue between GenealogyBank and FamilySearch. As I said yesterday, there have been a few reports of the problem. I think a moderator escalated the issue, but I never heard a result. @Ashlee C. can you please check?

Since obituary is the primary category of records from GBank in the life span of GSWZ-W23, it's probably an obituary. And, at least one of the obituaries I saw was titled exactly as shown in the Research Help/Hint. That's also pretty standard language for an obituary, with the full name and nickname.

My search criteria:
Collection: Newspaper Archives

Last Name: mcguire

First Name: william

Date: sep 1991 - sep 1991

Results: 17 hits

Searched On: June 22, 2024

You coul also contact GBank directly and ask them to review. Their support staff is generally pretty responsive. They have chat, email, and phone options. https://www.genealogybank.com/information/contact-genealogybank

Ashlee C.

@Áine Ní Donnghaile I think you are referring to this discussion thread:

United States, GenealogyBank Historical Newspaper Obituaries, 1815-2011

Jenn-Marie

Nov 29, 2023

Tree indicates record hints from "United States, GenealogyBank Historical Newspaper Obituaries, 1815-2011" for many of my relatives. Unfortunately, whenever I attempt to attach the source it says, "Page Not Found." This is a specific problem for this particular resource and has been occurring for a few months now. I keep hoping the dead links will eventually be fixed, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Is technical support already aware of this problem? Here is a link to an example of the problem: Grover Virgil Hudson (1916–1975) • Person • Family Tree • FamilySearch

---

View Post

It was determined that the issue with reviewing these record hints comes from record permissions.

JulianBrown38

@sgsreader I don't know if you have yet determined what kind of record to look for on GBank. If you are trying to access the record from William's profile page, I suggest that you use the SHOW ALL button at the bottom of the Research Help section. This isn't the most obvious course of action given that there is only one hint displayed, but, notwithstanding contractual arrangements, FS does show some information in the resulting display. In this case, it seems pretty obvious that the record is for an obituary; it lists a date and place (publication, I presume), birth and death dates, children and spouse. This would seem to provide some value to continuing to make such hints visible even though the records can't be opened in the source linker for review and attachment.

With regard to the more useful wording of the message that is described in the closed discussion referred to in previous posts in this discussion, that improvement is only partially implemented. Depending on how you attempt to access such records, you can get various responses from the system, including the following:

• The "We're unable to show this record." message that you have encountered. This occurs when you try to access the record from the Research Helps section of the profile page, from the Portrait and Landscape Tree views, or by clicking person's name in the Research Help SHOW ALL list.
• A bland "403 - Record access denied." message is displayed if you try to access the record from the Descendancy Tree view.
• If you click a REVIEW & ATTACH button in the Research Help SHOW All list, the source linker opens and immediately displays a "Something Went Wrong Error loading source" message.

W D Samuelsen contact me please

How long do we have to wait for this issue to be resolved?

I'm irked by the hint still stuck with Elias B. Finney L699-7H4 . I would like to see it off my hint list because there's no button to hit "Not a Match" to dislodge it.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

Nor should there be a "not a match" button if the hint belongs to Elias. That would train the algorithm in the wrong way.

W D Samuelsen contact me please

Found a way to get him off the hint list (that hint had me look in GB and found his obituary, copied it over.)

On long list of hint list , click the hint to open, hit "ignore". He's off the list

sgsreader

Does "ignore" affect the algorithms for finding matches?

W D Samuelsen contact me please

no to the question of "ignore".