Search Records - Collection Categories Bug

RaniM

For the past week (?) or so I've noticed that collections are missing from their relevant categories in Search and are instead appearing under the "Other" banner.

This is happening across all categories and doesn't appear to be confined to any specific country.

Of course, I can report it as a records issue. But I'm curious to know if anyone else has come across this problem. I just did a cursory search of the Community, and couldn't see this particular issue flagged.

As it seems to be affecting a broad number of record sets, I thought it worth mentioning here as a heads up to the community in general, since currently filtering by collection category may mean missing potential record matches.

Here's an example using English census records:

And here is a generic search for "John Smith", world wide, that illustrates just how many collections have suddenly jumped ship to "Other".

shecorwe

@RaniM Yes, I have included this thread in the submission. It is currently being reviewed.

Áine.ní.Donnghaile

Good morning @RaniM
There are a few related threads:
https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/191826/bug-1870-u-s-census-does-not-appear-in-collection-list-for-search-results
https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/191831/historical-records-search-the-browse-all-collections-function-has-fallen-apart

Missing Irish collections have also been reported in Genealogy BlueSky:
https://bsky.app/profile/shanew147.bsky.social/post/3muwvqmz6w226

And Randy Seaver's weekly update on FamilySearch collections noted millions of images "removed."
https://www.geneamusings.com/2026/09/added-and-updated-familysearch-record.html

Paul W

Perhaps a moderator / other FamilySearch employee would kindly escalate the issue?

RaniM

Thanks for those links @Áine.ní.Donnghaile, It would seem they're all noting different aspects of the same issue. Glad I'm not the only who's come across it. I thought I remembered reading the one about the 1870 US census, but it didn't come up when I did a search. I must've been using the wrong keywords.

I see @shecorwe noted it as submitted for further review over in that discussion. Thank you @shecorwe. If it's not already been noted in that submission, it might be worth noting that this is a catalogue wide problem, not just contained to the census collections.

MandyShaw1

I've done a bit of research into this.

In June this year, I had 3660 Collections in my analysis database, of which 14 had more than one collection category (record type); 6 of these 14 included the 'Miscellaneous' category.

Today, I have 3704 Collections. 2070 of them have more than one collection category; of these, 1713 include the 'Miscellaneous' category.

Clearly there has been a major change in the way the categorisation of collections works, newly involving the use of multiple categories on many collections.

The problem seems to me to be that the user interface has not kept up with this change and is only allowing for the first category it finds for each collection.

An example is the 'Alabama, Civil War Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, 1861-1865' collection (1932139). In June it had the single category 'Military'. Now, the coverage recordType in its JSON shows both 'Miscellaneous' and 'Military' (in that order), and the collection is not picked up by the 'Military' filter on https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/list, nor does 'Military' appear as its record type on https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/1932139.

RaniM

Thanks for your work @MandyShaw1 that's an interesting insight. I hadn't considered the use of multiple categories might be in play. It does seem odd to me that a record set which is very clearly (to use your example) a military collection would also be categorised as 'miscellaneous', but I admit back-end systems are not at all my area of expertise, so I imagine there must be a reason for it.

Thank you @shecorwe for including this thread in the submission. I'm glad to know it's being investigated.