Historical Records Search: The BROWSE ALL COLLECTIONS function has fallen apart
When I use Search » Records » BROWSE ALL COLLECTIONS, I am told that FamilySearch has a grand total of 3,478 collections. This screenshot is with no filters applied.
I can't find anything that I want using that function. I have to search by collection title. This behaviour is fairly recent; I have not used it for a maybe a week, at which point it was working.
Answers
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I suspect that the problem @JulianBrown38 mentions above and the one reported here may have the same root cause.
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@JulianBrown38 I get the same result you do when doing this all collection search. I don't usually search in such a general way, but would instead enter at least a place in the Collection Title section to filter the results. What result were you expecting from the all collection search?
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@shecorwe In this particular case, I was looking for the collection New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Passenger Lists. That takes about 4 clicks to find, once I'm in the historical records home page.
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@JulianBrown38 Yes, I agree click 1 Search, click 2 Records, click 3 Browse all collections, click 4 enter the search term. I'm sorry I must be slow today - I'm not seeing the bug, did this used to work another way?
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@shecorwe I'm solely using my mouse, clicking:
- Search
- Records
- BROWSE ALL COLLECTIONS (at this point, it says there are 3478 collections, as per the screenshot in my OP)
- In the Filter Collections panel, Migration & Naturalization
- Australia & New Zealand
- New Zealand
At this point, there is only one collection shown currently. It is New Zealand, Auckland, Port Albert, Membership Lists and Minutes from the Church of Christ, 1875-1926 which is not even a Naturalization & Migration collection. Previously, there was also just one collection, but it was New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Passenger Lists, which is the one the one I am after.
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@JulianBrown38 Gotcha. It looks like we both arrived at the same place using different tactics, which is great. There should be more than one way to do it. I guess I still don't understand how this search method "has fallen apart." What specifically am I telling the engineers is broken?
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@shecorwe What I think is broken is this:
- In my original post, I referred to the initial list that is shown when the BROWSE ALL COLLECTIONS button is clicked. I said that the display said that there are 3478 collections in total. That seems to me to be a little on the low side, but I have to say that I can't remember what the count used to be before the current issue arose.
- The main point is that when I filter the collections by type and location, the resulting list omits collections that ought to be included (false negatives) and includes collections that should not be included (false positives). My particular example includes one of each such errors. There is an even more dramatic example of this issue in the discussion that @Áine.ní.Donnghaile referenced earlier today. (I have just posted a comment there to reverse link to this discussion.)
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@JulianBrown38
From what my contacts have said, the categorization of record sets is one of the current issues. For example, some censuses are showing up in "Other" instead of in the Census category.
With that in mind, selecting a category such as "Migration & Immigration" is likely counterproductive until that problem is fixed. The problem is being addressed.
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@JulianBrown38 Thank you, this issue has been reported.
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