Please restore the "exact" functionality in Records Search placenames!

LegacyUser

Juli said: Whatever the current model does or doesn't do, it DOESN'T WORK. Plain and simple.

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

Not a single match to the place, exact or otherwise. Nothing even remotely close. What's in the search field is exactly what's in the metadata of the index. I got it from an index entry on the film.

The search is completely and utterly IGNORING MY INPUT. I don't know what it's looking for, but what I put in is not it.

LegacyUser

Paul said: I removed the parents' names, then at least it prioritised on the exact place name. But if the parents names were indexed as you had inputted it does not explain why that record is not appearing as a result.

Of course, your main point is true, too. I believe it was explained in another thread that an "Exact match plus" had been introduced deliberately to ensure "very close" matches were also included.

Hopefully Lundgren will be following this and can provide the "definitive" response.

LegacyUser

Brian Rhees said: Juli,

If you have an ark ID of a record that should have been in the results that was not I could look into how it was indexed to explain where the disconnect was with the indexing and the searching.

The behavior you're seeing with an exact search of "Garansek, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia" is the same as it was a month ago: https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...

We have not reloaded all of the data since the entry was fixed for Garansek/Hronsek (it happens once every 6-9 months) so the records are indexed/searchable down to "Banská Bystrica, Slovakia". So an exact match on "Garansek, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia" is returning all places we have indexed under the region of Banská Bystrica (even if the raw text did not have that level).

You'll see all of the results you are getting from your search standardize to a place under that jurisdiction in the research/places tool: https://www.familysearch.org/research...

LegacyUser

Juli said: Turns out I got my bride and groom confused, and the search as entered has no matches. However, this does not change my assessment that the place field "exact" box is broken: I check the box and get more than a dozen pieces of junk that don't even remotely match what I entered, never mind being an exact match like I told it to look for.

The state of the Places database and update statuses should have absolutely nothing to do with matching my search string to an index field. If I'm looking for [searchstring1] and I tell it to only return exact matches, then every single result had darn well better have exactly [searchstring1] in that field!

LegacyUser

Brian Rhees said: Agreed that calling the place search an "exact" search is not accurate and causes some confusing results when place names do not match exactly what was typed in.

The goal of the way place searches currently works is to provide results for the place being searched for even when it may have been indexed slightly differently.
So typos, missing jurisdiction levels, additional jurisdiction levels, alternate names, etc. should all be in the results:
- Garansek, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
- Hronsek Castle, Hronsek, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
- Hronsek, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
- Garansak, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
- Garansek, Slovakia

LegacyUser

Juli said: Garamszeg, Zólyom, Hungary is the one that applies before 1920.

They're putting the cart before the horse. Neither the Places database nor the index metadata are cleaned up anywhere near sufficiently for this approach to work.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Agreed. Even in the UK, I have issues with records for my home town because historical records with "Crewe" on the original source are being mapped to "Crewe-by-Farndon" in the index - presumably because the standard place-name for the period is "Borough of Crewe" and that's not as close a match as Crewe-by-Farndon.

I have asked the places team to fix this but nothing yet...

And yes, to be clear, my issue is about the construction of the index - I've really, really, no idea what Search Records does in this case.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: NB - I've posed some specific questions on https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea... because, as I say, the Crewe issue is about creating Historical Records, not Searching them.