Delaware Death Records no longer searchable
I'm a volunteer working to rebuild the burial records of a defunct African American cemetery in Delaware. My primary tool for this work is the Delaware Death Records index (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1520546), but quite suddenly that index is no longer searchable. When I type in a name it tells me the number of records that match my search terms, but the records themselves do not actually appear in search results. Any reason why an index would stop being accessible even though it remains listed on FamilySearch?
Answers
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Can you please escalate this question? A quick check of the relevant DGS shows the images are still viewable, so this does not appear to be a restriction due to a contract change.
For example:
Thanks.
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@Brian Harper Tibaldo Engineers are aware of this and are working to fix the problem which occurred on Tuesday of last week. If you find other collections affected, please report it. The known collections with this same issue are:
New York Church and Civil Deaths 1824-1962
New York Marriages 1686-1980
New Mexico Births and Christenings 1726-1918
Italy, Genova Civil Registration
Germany, Saxony, Diocese of Dresden-Meissen, Catholic Church Records 1621-1976
Canada, Ontario Marriages 1800-1910
Austria, Upper Austria, Linz, Death Certificates 1818-1899
Liberia Vital Records, 1912-2017
Texas Deaths and Burials, 1903-1973
Minnesota, Hennepin County, Minneapolis, Layman Cemetery Burial Records, 1860-1926
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It has also occurred with the Italy, Sardinia, Cagliari, Pula Civil Registrations from 1911-1929.
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Thanks, @SerraNola
It would be a great idea IMHO to put an announcement when there is a known problem of this type. I just checked Community News and didn't see an announcement.
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@Italiano_per_matrimonio I think the records you referenced are missing because they fall outside of the restrictions on the years of Italian records due to Italian privacy laws: 100 years for births and 70 years for marriages and deaths.
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@SerraNola Thank you for your response. For the record, the Atti di Nascita, Matrimonio, and Morte for 1911-1929 were available through August 30 for Pula as well as other communities in the area. Now, not even the marriages and deaths are available for that time period. If 100 years was the limit for birth records, why are they not available for 1911-23? And for marriages and deaths, 1929 was 95 years ago, so they shouldn't be blocked based on the 70 year restriction. Were there any other restrictions that went into effective on or after September 1 to block their availability?
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@Italiano_per_matrimonio I should have clarified that access to records is also regulated by contract with the archive. I know that the legal team at FamilySearch is constantly reviewing contracts and updating when the agreements change. I would guess that is the case here as I see that "Allegati 1911-1921" and "Allegati 1921-1927" are also restricted.
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I do believe part of the problem is the ongoing issue FS has when a film, in this case, Film 2277537, contains mixed records with different privacy restrictions. So, a reel with both births and marriages is a real problem for them. This issue occurs across the entire catalog of Italian records.
FS has begun to separate some of these films, but they have a long way to go.
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@SantaNinfa Yes, I agree!
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The "all or nothing" approach to image restrictions on FS is a long-standing policy affecting all types of record images from all parts of the world: if a film or image group includes even a single restricted image, then the entire film or group is restricted. As mentioned, we've been told that they're working on changing this, by breaking up the permissions on image groups, but I have yet to see any certain evidence of such segmentation, so far.
Diagnosing a change in permissions is complicated by the havoc wreaked in image and index access by the bug (or gremlin) in the index editor-and-viewer. Knock on wood, trying to correct an indexing error no longer seems to run quite as much of a risk as before of rendering the whole thing invisible instead of fixed, but this doesn't restore all of the entries and pages that already disappeared because of it.
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@SantaNinfa Thank you for your explanation.
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Hello,
Would this explain why 1929 marriages for Catania Sicily that were previously available for many years have now become unavailable? All the other Catania docs seem fine.
Italy, Catania, Catania, ...on (Tribunale), 1866-1929- Catania
- Catania
- Matrimoni 1928-1929
- Italy, Catania, Catania, ...on (Tribunale), 1866-1929
- Catania
- Catania
- Indici decennali di matrimoni 1916-1936
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I have the same problem. In a very small area of poland..Bor Zapilski and Pusczcew.Slaskie poland. All the records for around this area are still there. But this area is not? My family are from this area. I could use it last year..:{ Now all I see is some of it in the Image area of images. I cannot get it large enough to see and thing and I cannot download or do anything to make it useable. Why did this happen? So frustrating. I am more than grateful for what FamilySearch does for all of us.. Im just hoping it will back someday to something I can see..Is there anyway to find out what happened? Thank you!
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@zabroskis Were these Catholic parish records—the records you were able to see last year?
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@zabroskis, are these the records you're looking for? https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/57557
There are multiple possible reasons a record set that we used to be able to access might no longer show up using our prior methods. None of these reasons are transparently communicated anywhere.
One possibility is changing contracts: perhaps the record custodian has now made arrangements with a different, paywalled site?
Another possibility is that someone noticed a lapse in privacy-law enforcement or another error in the access permissions. (Sometimes such changes go in our favor. Sometimes, they don't.)
It's also possible that a change in permissions was the unintentional result of some other tweak or edit.
The disimprovements to the way FS handles placenames have now been applied to the Catalog search, which means that it comes up with "no results found" very frequently. A different search (such as by keyword) sometimes turns up the missing catalog entries, but this is less than satisfactory when the place is, say, Vienna. (Yep, putting Vienna, Austria in the Catalog search's Place field gives "no results".)
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I do not have a definitive answer for the Italian or Polish records, but of the list of collections that were not showing results—all have been repaired with the exception of New York Marriages and New Mexico Births. Those two should be fixed by tonight or tomorrow.
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Georgia and Alabama County Marriage records, previously fully viewable, are also showing “Image Unavailable.” Any updates?
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Availability of marriages from Georgia varies by county. Many are fully viewable, but a few are restricted to AL or FSC. I was in Walton County marriages earlier today.
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The counties in Georgia and Alabama I tried to access have previously been fully available; I’m certain of that because I view the same ones pretty regularly. I tried several times again today, first via “Alabama County Marriages 1809 - 1950” and “Georgia County Marriages 1785 - 1950;” choosing “Browse Images” sends me to an error page: “Something Went Wrong. Unfortunately, something went wrong. Try refreshing the page, or come back later.” Attempting to go through the specific county entries gives me the “Images Unavailable” message.
Do you know if this issue is related to permissions changes as well? To me, that seems highly unlikely as these records were microfilmed on location many decades ago and the images have been available here for years. I’ve cleared my cache, etc., but still no luck. I appreciate any suggestions!0 -
I think you'll need to be more specific about the counties you are experiencing difficulty in accessing. I have just been successful in accessing images from several in the "Georgia County Marriages 1785 - 1950" collection. However, I did encounter a behaviour I had not previously experienced, whereby some sets were giving a message that viewing was only possible at a FamilySearch Center or Affiliate, but after clicking on "OK" I was then able to proceed in viewing the images (from home)!
Sometimes, I'm told, viewing rights depends on the country of residence of the user - I'm in the U.K., so don't know if my location is a factor here, but no problems so far in accessing several items under the Georgia County heading.
Here's just one example illustrating my lack of a problem, but - as Áine suggests - perhaps it's just the specific County records you are trying to access that are are producing the issue.
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I'm also very familiar with both Georgia and Alabama records, as much of my maternal research is based in those two states.
And, in another collection, I had a brief glitch yesterday, seeing the "not available for viewing at this time." But, that error message cleared after a few moments.1 -
@Paul W thank you for sharing the link you were able to access. Unfortunately, I’m getting the same error message there too.
And Áine, I tried Greene, Hancock, and Troup, Georgia; Russell and Chambers, Alabama; Greene, Missouri. Redirected to the page with error message: “Something Went Wrong. Unfortunately, something went wrong. Try refreshing the page, or come back later.”
So I’m guessing that means there’s a problem on my end. I’ll check to see if I missed an automatic software update. Thank you for your help!0 -
@grace316shockley First thing I would recommend is clearing FS site-specific cookies. I just verified that Greene County is working correctly by accessing the marriage of my 2nd great-grandparents at
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