Why do you have to be at a family search affiliate to see images?

LegacyUser

Salil Gupta said: I couldn’t find any information on this so perhaps someone has already asked it. But I am just wondering why it is required to go to an authorized Family Search location to access an image of a record. Is this because those locations pay for access? Why can’t users remotely access these resources? Thanks

LegacyUser

David Newton said: Contracts.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Welcome to the community support forum for FamilySearch. FamilySearch personnel read every discussion thread and may or may not respond as their time permits. We all share an active interest in using the resources of this site and as users, we have various levels of knowledge and experience and do our best to help each other with concerns, issues, and/or questions.

The owner of the record(s) involved has placed contractual restrictions on accessing the records. Those restrictions vary depending upon the contractual agreement between FamilySearch and the owner of the records.

As to why the owner has placed restrictions? I really don't know, but in the case of some Illinois records (where my relatives lived), the clerks wanted a means to make money from those records. There is an organization that is fighting for free access and sometimes getting any access is better than none at all.

That isn't a good response, and we've been told that FamilySearch is working toward as wide an access as the holders will agree to. There are some instances where the records are part of a film where one item on a multi-item film has restrictions and others do not, but because it was part of a film, it was all filmed as if it was one part.

In other instances, the custodians were contacted and had not placed the restrictions on their records, but somebody made a mistake in restricting the records.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: You can find a KA to this at:

https://www.familysearch.org/help/sal...

Note that the KA has a reference to a short video called "Access to Records" that is also quite good.

LegacyUser

A van Helsdingen said: This restriction is likely due to a contract between FS and the record owner. Tom's answer is quite good. In many cases the owner wants revenue from the records, which would be threatened by having them on a free website. They may have signed an exclusive contract with a site such as Ancestry.com which says they can't make the records freely available on another website. They may have legal or religious objections to making the records widely available.

What Tom says about possible mistakes is also true. Sometimes multiple records on the same film have different contracts. FS hasn't yet come up with a way to divide those films, so the most restrictive access conditions must be applied to the whole film. Sometimes genuine mistakes occur, and the restriction applied was not actually agreed with the record owner.

Could you specify which records you are talking about? Some of us here have knowledge about why certain sets of records have restrictions on them.

I suggest contacting the record custodian- the archive, library etc- that holds the records. Ask whether they did indeed authorise the restrictions and ask why. If the custodian is a government body, you can use Freedom of Information laws to get
a copy of the contract between them and FS. Enquire whether there is an alternative online means to view the records. Try and persuade them to relax the restrictions and get in contact with FS to renegotiate a new contract.