In need of Spain Records and also Puerto Rico Records you have and never Transcribed.

LegacyUser

Carol Dunkleberger said: I would like to see records from Spain. Also You have records online for Puerto Rico that are still under Lock and Key and not viewable online and only thru a Center. Mine is 100 miles away. You also have others that can be viewed using the Catalog and Image view and these have never been transcribed and do not show on searches. I like many others would love for you to bring back the way to correct or add non transcribed records as you had this feature many years ago. In my searches I have seen many errors for Spanish Language records and no way to correct these and non transcribed records and no way to add.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Prior to the release of digitized images, the only place where you could view records was at a Family History facility, such as a Family History Center or the Family History Library in Salt Lake.

As has been stated many times, the owners of the filmed/digitized records control access rights to the digitized records.

Right now, the number of volunteers who are indexing records are insufficient to keep up with the digitization process. We were recently told only about 10 percent of the records are being indexed at the present time.

We have also complained long and hard about not being able to correct the indexes produced through the FamilySearch indexing efforts. This has not fallen on deaf ears and several have commented that they understand the frustration to the lack of such facilities has caused.

However, the release of a feature to add to, correct, and/or change an indexed record is still in the future. The priority just is not that high in the minds of those who are involved with the development of FamilySearch. Recently one employee said that the feature has been in development for years, so the only thing that has come to mind is that it simply does not have a high priority.

At the last Roots Tech, Ron Tanner ("the Family Tree guy") provided slides of a mock up of what they envision the feature would look like. A mock up? After years of being in development? And that's all the further that development has proceeded? Ugh!

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: By the way, there has never been a way to correct the FamilySearch produced indexes. Other sites such as Ancestry have had the ability, but not FamilySearch.

LegacyUser

Dulce Nombre Rexach Lineros said: Yes, please! Provide more records from Spain. The only way I have to research my family back in Spain is doing it online, but I keep hitting the proverbial brick wall as records are nowhere to be found.
BTW, I just requested to join some Spanish indexing groups, but I see in the map that there are no Spanish indexing projects. Hmmm...

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: There are quite a number of Latin American projects in Spanish that are currently ongoing, if you are looking for a Spanish Indexing project.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Have you looked to see if there are any films for the area (in Spain) you are searching? That is the first thing that has to be determined before raising a question about indexes.

The next thing has to do with what I mentioned at the top of this discussion a little over a year ago:

As has been stated many times, the owners of the filmed/digitized records control access rights to the digitized records.

If older films are involved (more than five or so records), then it is likely that the contract was drawn up before it was realized that the film stock for duplicating microfilm was going to basically disappear (or, at the very least, become prohibitively expensive). Sometimes, and especially during the pandemic, getting contract terms worked out may be stalled until the pandemic ends. Spain is a hard-hit country and the United States (where FamilySearch is located, including the teams involved in contractual agreements) is particularly adversely impacted, despite the easing of various state orders.

It is good that you have volunteered to join some Spanish indexing groups and doing so may raise the option of making Spanish records available for indexing if they have not already been indexed and are waiting on revised distribution terms.

If you know the custodians where the records you are interested in are located, you may want to talk to them about preservation plans and see what they say, If they express an interest and have not already made arrangements, then you may want to refer them to the https://www.familysearch.org/records/... page on FamilySearch.

LegacyUser

Dulce Nombre Rexach Lineros said: Thanks for your prompt reply. For about 12 years now -from my location in Virginia, USA- I’ve been looking for Spanish records (birth, marriage, death) that would provide basic information in order to be able to connect loose names in my family tree and go beyond the three most recent generations. These records aren’t in any private collection, organization, museum... they are in parroquial Churches, Diocesis, Municipal archives, storage rooms and other public places just waiting for someone to look at them with a camera. For example, years ago I was able to contact a municipal worker at Higuera de la Sierra (Huelva), a small town with a census of 1,200 and I was informed that the records were not digitalized -as there wasn’t a dedicated records keeper nor budget to do so- but were held in several damaged cardboard boxes in the Library storage room, available for research with the proper permission. This is the case in very many places and this is the type of brick wall I’m finding wherever I turn to. A decade ago, during a phone call to the number you post on Family Search to inquire about the lack of records, I was told that the missionaries were combing the geography of Spain and they hadn’t still arrived to many rural areas. I had to be patient.
About 12 years ago, I held a paid membership with ancestry.com and was able to trace ALL my husband’s German ancestry (Prussia and Saxony) since late 18th century, and connect him with close living relatives in the US he knew nothing about. I also had help from Family Search, S.S. Death indexes, published Census lists, New York City records, immigration records and ship manifests from Hamburg, Ellis Island and Castle Garden, 1920’s Berlin phone books, German Church records, etc. (I’m a stubborn and thorough researcher) but I have not been that fortunate with my own family in Spain, even when trying to access public records from specific areas/towns were I’m certain my relatives were born, as they don’t show up anywhere in genealogical sources. No films at Family Search, either, that was my first step.
There is a possibility that some Catholic archives were destroyed during the civil war (1936-39) as they were held in Churches that were torched, but that was not the case with the vast majority of them. If I was able to find info from Germany after suffering two devastating wars, I should be able to find Spanish ones but that’s not the case as they aren’t digitalized. As I pointed out earlier, I started my search years ago, way before the pandemic and took an eight-year hiatus in the hope to find new records when I would eventually decide to retake the investigation. But alas, no luck.
And this is the reason why I wrote my post: sheer disappointment. Please, provide records from Spain. My areas of interes at this time are: Villamartín (Cádiz), Villanueva de San Juan (Sevilla), Higuera de la Sierra (Huelva) and Sant Feliu de Guixols (Gerona).

I am already -eagerly- indexing records from South America and one day I hope to do the same with records from my birth country, as for now the only European indexing projects are Italian, Hungarian and Danish, if I recall properly from a brief look at the map.

Thanks for your attention to this subject.

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: Something to keep in mind with Catholic records is that since 2009, official Catholic policy is not to share any records with FamilySearch. While this is widely ignored (for there are millions of Catholic records on FS), some Catholic dioceses and parishes do adhere to this rule. If the Catholic parishes you are looking for keep this rule, you would need to either contact or visit the Priest or the Diocesian archives, and you would be wise not to mention that you are a Latter Day Saint if that is the case.

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: I have found that the Indexing map is often inaccurate. There are are many more European indexing projects than those three languages/countries, including German and Dutch ones. If you go into the Indexing Program and into the form for checking out batches, you can see the full list sorted by language.

LegacyUser

Dulce Nombre Rexach Lineros said: Well, that’s a bummer... I had no idea. Visiting the parish or priest is going to be a no-go, as I live in the USA.
Regarding the European indexing projects, I prefer to stay with languages I’m familiar with (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French), so I fully understand the writing and what the record says when data needs to be interpreted.

Thanks for replying.

LegacyUser

Carol Dunkleberger said: 06/02/2020- Mr Huber, Although my original post In Family Search.org is a year old I have decided to answer your latest post received 05/31/2020. What I was referring to is that on FS website there are records under lock that can only be viewed at a FSHC and I am not sure why they can not be viewed thru the website. In these days of social distancing specially for those of us in age the owners of those filmed/digitized records should be available thru the website even if we have to pay the same fee we would pay at a FSHC. I would not mind at all. In reference to the corrections feature for records that WAS there many years ago it did not fall in deaf ears. In fact it is now back and better. When a record has been transcribed you can now go back and correct and even highlight what you are correcting and even explain why you are correcting the transcribed record. So they are listening to us.

LegacyUser

Carol Dunkleberger said: 06/02/2020 to Dulce Nombre Rexach Lineros Although my original post is over a year old I thought I would post a comment to your comments received 06/01/2020. There are a lot of records for Spain and Puerto Rico now that can be viewed thru the FS website from your own computer at home. However there are also others than cannot be viewed as well. The feature I refereed to about making corrections is back and in fact even better as now you can highlight what you are correcting and even make a comment as to why you know the correction is correct. Where in Puerto Rico you search for? Here is a link for Spain records.

https://www.familysearch.org/search/c...

LegacyUser

Dulce Nombre Rexach Lineros said: @Carol Dunkleberger: Thanks for the link, I had already worked with the records that applied and extracted all the info I could; I found some valuable morsels but I'm at a standstill once again, for things such as -for instance- when a family with several children shows up in consecutive city census (1897-1902) indicating that the children were born in the city but none of them are found in birth records... none. Then I cannot find wedding or death certificates for anyone, either, no matter how complex or simplified I make the search. All I get back is 'no matches'. And that's just on my father's side. On my mother's, I can't even find the most basic records for, say, my Gmother, who was part of my life for 25 years and was born, married and died in the same city. So frustrating!

I was not the person requesting Puerto Rico records as I only have family in Spain. I did second the petition for more Spain records for that same reason.
Once again, thank you.

LegacyUser

Juli said: Dulce, on a quick browse through the FS catalog, there are a lot of unindexed but browsable church records available from Spain. (Semi-random example: https://www.familysearch.org/search/c...) They're not indexed, so no amount of creativity in Search - Records is going to turn them up, but Search - Catalog may be quite fruitful. You'll probably want to start with researching the jurisdictional heirarchies and the vital records policies of the area in question (filiate churches, church versus civil registration, that sort of thing), and then use that information to look for the relevant locations in the Catalog.
Recommended viewing: "Finding Elusive Records" with Robert Kehrer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn2VY...).

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: As has been stated elsewhere on this forum, records that are restricted (for example, only viewable at a Family History Center) is due to contracts between FS and the record custodian.

Often, the records are on another pay-to-use website. FS is free and does not want to charge its users. The custodian therefore asks for the records to be restricted to avoid people using FS to bypass fees.

In other cases, the contract was made decades ago and has not been updated to allow for online access, or a mistake has been made by FS in applying the contract. There are also cases involving Catholic records where the owners have religious objections to making them available on FS.

You should contact the owner of the records you want (e.g. a church or government archive), and ask about alternative ways to view the records. If there are no alternative ways that give them revenue, you should politely ask them why their records are restricted and if they would reconsider their position on the issue.

LegacyUser

Dulce Nombre Rexach Lineros said: Thanks so much, Juli, I’ll look into your clues and, hopefully, find some of the elusive information. I’m a long term, untrained but stubborn family researcher that still has much to learn about that kind of finesse.