Losing Access to Records
Is there a way to stay up to date or receive alerts when Family Search loses access to records? I know the community page posts about new access to records, but access to many of the records I was utilizing was recently lost and I was definitely caught off-guard.
Answers
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Link to existing thread:
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This is a separate question. This new thread is asking if there is a way to receive alerts when access to records is going to disappear or does disappear instead of being caught off guard. Do you know the answer to that?
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I believe FamilySearch only acts in the same way as other major organisations regarding publication of material / collections on their website. Like others, it publicises any new records (in its Blog section), but does not announce the disappearance of records.
I guess this is understandable in in way: who wants to publicise negative news? Unfortunately, this lack of advice does lead to queries as to whether a collection has been withdrawn by accident or design. So, yes, it would be very helpful if (possibly alongside the material material listed monthly in the Blog), departures - as well as arrivals - could also be noted. An example practice of this is found on websites featuring movies, where imminent losses are announced, presumably to provide the subscriber with a final opportunity to watch the item before it is lost to the site!
I'd be very surprised if FamilySearch ever does adopt such a practice, however, as it has been made clear (in similar threads) over the years of the problems suddenly-disappearing-collections can cause for patrons, and yet no action has ever been taken to date.
On the one hand, one would think it would not be too difficult a task: a simple statement (say "for contractual reasons…") that FamilySearch was no longer able to display such records would surely do nothing to harm any confidentiality agreements and stop speculation on whether loss of access just might have taken place unintentionally.
However, one has to remember that "permissions" sometimes need to be obtained right down to "individual incumbent" level. That means, for example, in a collection comprising of records of around five hundred parish registers, there could be an objection raised to continued FamilySearch publication involving just two or three churches, meaning FamilySearch might have to go into much greater detail in listing its "loses" than would ostensibly seem to be the case.
One final thought relates to the specific benefit you would have experienced - in the examples illustrated above - had you been made aware of their imminent departure. I wonder what action you would have taken that would have "mitigated" the loss? For example, where images are involved, I would have certainly download them to your hardware, just in case they were to become unavailable to view through a URL link, at some point. Even if the record only showed indexed data, I would still record that information elsewhere on your computer, for the same reason.
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Agree 100% with @Paul W's last paragraph.
It is basically unwise to assume that anything anyone has put anywhere on the Web will stay where it was put. 'The internet is always a little bit broken.' Compliance, contractual, and privacy concerns may result in removal of information; website technology changes, causing link rot; and businesses with websites simply go bust, change their focus, or are taken over.
The main location for my family history research is on my own PC, with suitable backups. Like Paul I keep local copies of the images and index metadata for the FS sources relevant to my family (also for the relevant Memories). I also think it's a good idea to archive important web links using archive.org.
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As the director of my local genealogy library says, "See something useful for your research online? Download it NOW. Do not wait until tomorrow because it may no longer be available."
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@Areekes I can only echo the advice of experienced researchers in this thread, to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Notifications of upcoming changes by Contract and Compliance (C&C) are usually limited to identifying the countries impacted. The latest updates include New Zealand, Venezuela, India, and France.
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I was going into my source box to do downloads when I realized they were gone. I didn’t realize they would disappear so quickly. If I could go back in time I would have downloaded them when found.
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