Search for Sri Lankan surnames no longer show results
Hi folks,
My local Family Search Centre advised me to post a request for help here regarding a problem that has us all stumped.
I did a simple search at home for four surnames in Colombo, Sri Lanka recently, and I got more than a hundred results returned for each name, including those for certain people I was looking for. After getting lots of good info from them, I book-marked the page links for easy access when I returned in the following days.
All worked fine the following day, but on my third visit none of the links worked, and I got a 'something's gone wrong' message instead. I did the original searches again, but the hundred-plus results from Sri Lanka no longer show up. When I search using details I got from my first visit, it shows 'no results found.' The official from the FS Centre used her own account, and she can't get any positive results, either.
However, I can still access all the individual record books for Sri Lanka, so they are all still available, even though the search function seems to ignore them. Not all of them are indexed, it says, but obviously the ones available on my original search were all indexed, with all the documents availble to view. I thought that perhaps it had something to do with me viewing them at home, but, as I mentioned, the same thing applies using the Family Portal at my local Centre.
I would appreciate any suggestions to help resolve this issue. Thanks.
Answers
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I don't know if you'll see this before Monday, but if you try again, do you still get the same results as before? Then we'll know if it was just a temporary database issue or a more long-standing problem.
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@Stuart5243 I'm guessing these were civil registration and not church records. It appears that most of the government records have been restricted. However, I'm confused that while the films all say not indexed, a few of them still pop up in search results:
Also, the catalog shows some as indexed, but clicking on them returns no results. I will try to verify if the indexes were intentionally removed or by error.
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Thank you for those replies.
I have tried the various searches again, but without success. When I did the searches originally, I did notice that the birth registrations were all civil, with a few marriage records taken from church records. In fact, the one that does still show up is a marriage certificate from church records, so perhaps it's just the civil ones that aren't showing.
The quick scan I made of the results originally gave me a lot of avenues to explore with my research, but I didn't think to copy the information down, which might at least have directed me to the specific records I would have to look for, so that opportunity is gone for the present.
Fingers crossed, it might still be a database error that will be corrected in the near future. Thanks again for your help.
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A last query regarding this matter, if that's okay: is there a Family Search technical department I can contact about this matter to see if I can regain access. I have continued going through the individual records, but it's going to be a long slog without the results I briefly had access to.
Thanks again.
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@Stuart5243 try the Family Search Support Help Line at 866-406-1830 during mountain time business hours
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@Stuart5243 I have been in touch with engineers concerning these Sri Lankan civil registration records and confirmed it is a FamilySearch error which has been found in other collections. There is not a fix yet but it is being worked on and is a high priority.
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