The current procedure for adding new records is making life difficult for researchers

LegacyUser

Paul said: Both indexed records added to existing collections and new non-indexed records (found in the Search - Images section) are currently being added in groups of ridiculously small numbers. It cannot be that someone suddenly finds another group of records or documents lying in the corner of a room somewhere, because obviously this is not how the system works. However, it is difficult to see what is happening when, month after month, there are instances of a handful of records being added - in the case of indexed records to existing collections, but with image-only ones, there are effectively new sets of records added, whereas many fall into the same category.

For an example of the indexed-records problem, see https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/..., where nine sets of records have only between just 1 and 20 additional records being added.

For Image (only) records, see the screenshot below. In this example, there are two different groups of records (1838 & 1847 Yorkshire probate records), but (presumably because of them being added at different times) they are presented as five separate groups. Go to https://www.familysearch.org/records/... and scroll down the page and the problem is illustrated even more clearly.



There must surely be a way on holding back the release of such small numbers of records until a reasonable number can be added together. The current system, of adding so much in "dribs and drabs", is making searches and identification* of the records extremely difficult.

(* The problems in identifying added records is discussed at https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...)

LegacyUser

Paul said: I just added this comment to the Blog item at https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/...

"It’s great that so many records are being added to FamilySearch – but how do I find them? Some of the collections listed have just one or two new records being added, but these are impossible to identify, especially once they sit among the thousands of others already added some time ago. Please try to be more specific about the details of these records. They might be of great use to us – if only we could locate them!"

I look forward to any response. I would be delighted if my comments (here or there) could be passed on to someone responsible for records, indexing and/or digitising.

LegacyUser

David Newton said: Try Randy Seaver's Geneamusings blog. There's a weekly post there detailing record and image additions and deletions. BTW I agree that the dribs and drabs approach to updating collections is not particularly helpful. Better it happens every couple of weeks or even every month or so (for a particular collection) as adding more records slightly less often is psychologically more fulfilling as well.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: This issue has come up before and no changes were made by FamilySearch to mitigate the problem. I agree that the current process is frustrating and irritating and would be mitigated somewhat by updating less often. It is almost like an "update" indicator is set every time just one index for one record is added to the collection.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I'm puzzled by the penny numbers - there must surely be a reason but whether the Yorkshire probate extras are from an obscure and very small church court in Yorkshire, or corrections to indexes or whatever, I have no idea. I suspect my tidy mind is exercised more by the puzzle than the genealogy!

Re - "Is it worth my while having another look?"
I wonder if it would make sense for me to get a further Watch List report telling me about new record hints for the profiles that I'm watching? If the new records appeared as hints, then that would save me having to do a speculative just-in-case search. I know we get Discovery Messages but those are just one-offs. (Does their one-off nature imply that identifying new hints against Watching users is hard?)