Pomerania Church Records

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: There has been disappointment for some time amongst genealogists with Pomeranian (now western Poland and eastern Germany) ancestry about how the church records from that region are being restricted to LDS members only.

Christopher DeWuske, who runs the "MyPomerania" website, has raised this issue with both the record custodian and FamilySearch. He has obtained strong evidence directly from the custodian that there is no contractual or legal basis on their end to restrict the records. I would also note line 7 of Article 53 of the Polish Constitution- the "organs of public authority" cannot require people to disclose their religion,which would make a religious-based restriction imposed by the Polish state not permitted.

See: http://mypomerania.com/familysearch-l... Since this article he has continued to advocate for better access to these records.

FS has refused to relax the restrictions, and has neither confirmed or denied whether their partnership with Ancestry has anything to do with these restrictions. Most of the records in question are on Ancestry.

Pomerania researchers simply want to know:
1. Does Ancestry have anything to do with these restrictions?
2. If not, when will FS relax the restrictions?

LegacyUser

Don M Thomas said: Don't hold your breath A van Helsdingen for a response to your questions.

LegacyUser

MaureenE said: I would say almost certainly something to do with Ancestry but you will not get an acknowledgement of this.

Regarding the records mentioned in the link in the original post, the catalogue reference is Kirchenbuch, 1763-1814
https://www.familysearch.org/search/c.... This shows the images are viewable with restrictions. To me this would mean at least at a Family History Centre, however the message for me, a non LDS church member is "To view these images do one of the following:
You may be able to view this image by visiting one of our partners' sites or the legal record custodian (fees may apply)"

As suggested on another recent post, I would try using the Errors? button at the bottom of the catalogue entry page complaining that the catalogue page shows the records to be viewable with restriction, meaning there is a FamilySearch way to view these records but the film message shows the message (for a non LDS church member)
"To view these images do one of the following: You may be able to view this image by visiting one of our partners' sites or the legal record custodian (fees may apply)."
Ask that the viewing be fixed up to reflect the catalogue information.

Maybe the problem will be fixed, maybe not.

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: For a long time, it has been standard that LDS-only records have the key and camera symbol. I think their concern is that Latter Day Saints could view the catalog while not signed in, and so would be misled into thinking that certain records were not available.

LegacyUser

MaureenE said: I think it is more misleading for non LDS Church members, who may be unfamiliar with the website and who may not know to click through to the film to know it is unavailable, to think the records will be available at a FamilyHistory Centre and go there unnecessarily.

Quoting from the link in the initial post from the website "My Pomerania" which is an example of a non LDS church member.
"Then, I was informed I would need to be present at a Family History Center. I visited several times, able to access Pomeranian and Silesian images from Belgard and Falkowitz without issue. Collections of civil registers from Holzheim in Hessen also appeared to be intact and available. I waited for the church books to become available.

When the Holzheim church books did finally become available, I planned my trip and showed up at the closest Family History Center to my home–about a half-hour drive from my home with light traffic. I logged in, clicked on the collection, and was still shown a “locked collection” screen.

I inquired with the staff. No one there knew what to do. Not only that, nobody there knew who to contact to solve the problem. I opened a chat window and waited. The person on the other end was puzzled that the volunteers couldn’t put me in touch with the center’s director. After an hour of back-and-forth, I was finally handed a phone number of the previous director. No help was provided on that front either.

After a series of phone calls, I was informed there was no way I could access the collection."

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: I was not agreeing with FamilySearch's position. However I think using a microfilm symbol for LDS-only records would be misleading. If you know a Latter Day Saint they might be kind and let you use their account to view LDS-only records.

Ideally there would be 4 symbols (at least for non-LDS): microfilm only, LDS only or not available in your country (not sure how common such restrictions are), restricted (i.e. FHCs and/or Affiliate Libraries) and no restrictions. But FamilySearch's changes to the restriction messages late last year indicate they are trying to keep quiet about the fact that LDS have greater access rights. Therefore LDS-only has to lumped together with the FHC/Affiliate Library only restrictions.