Search too wide - please make it more restrictive
LegacyUser
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EChilds said: I love that the search has expanded to include dates beyond the range one enters, but perhaps it has expanded a bit too much? The results I'm getting now are way out of the range of what could be feasible for who I'm searching for.
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Lundgren said: Thank you for your feedback,
We are investigating an issue with date ranges in some queries not working correctly.0 -
Gordon Collett said: So maybe something is broken in the searches? That would be nice. If there has been a change in the philosophy of how searches work with the date ranges, then I would hope this will be reassessed and changed back.
If I have from a source that someone was born in, for example, 1826 and I am confident that is correct, I used to be able to limit a search to exactly that single year. Now, a multitude of unwanted results makes it really hard to determine if the record I am looking for exists or not.
Specifically:
I have Anna Hansdatter born 1 December 1826 in the digitized Norwegian parish records. I want to know if a corresponding indexed record exists in the FamilySearch historical records database Norway Baptisms.
If I go to the database and set up this search:
I would expect to get the less than half a dozen Anna's born those two years or no results at all if that particular parish record never got indexed.
Instead I get a confusing, worthless mess of 1,334 results:
https://www.familysearch.org/search/r...
which leaves me wondering if the parish record was indexed and the result I want is buried somewhere in the 14 pages of results.
If I specify a date range of 1826 to 1827, that is what I want. If I wanted to have results from all years, I wouldn't put in a date range.
Please make the date range in the records search actually be meaningful again.0 -
Lundgren said: Thank you for your comment!
The change was unintentional. The behavior will revert back to what it was last week.
The specified year range as used above is not a filter. It will cause results that are within the specified range to come back sooner in your results than other results that equally match.
The filters exist in the lower left corner of the website search, and currently only go down to decade ranges.
Please note that the check box next to the birthplace does NOT apply to the birth year to the right of the check box..
If you are interested in the score of the search results and how dates modify the sort you can download the result set. You will see a score to the left of each results that indicates how each result is scored relative to the others in the search.
The score is NOT an indication of the quality of the result over all, just a score relative to the other results in that search. Scores of the same search from one search to the next can change based on changes happening in the data set.
If possible, you may also want to add additional search terms to narrow your 1334 results down further.0 -
Gordon Collett said: The specified year range used to be a filter and it would be very nice if it was again.
Looking at the results, the way they are produced now are just logically strange. The first two fall within the date range but completely ignore the specified exact place name. None of the rest fall into the date range, as far as I can see, but all show the specified exact place name.0 -
Gordon Collett said: Wait a minute. This is even more strange. I usually use Safari to work in Family Tree but have getsatisfaction open in Firefox.
When I open the above search result link in Firefox, I only get the three results that are in the 1826 to 1827 date range, none of the other. Those three don't have the right place, however, showing Gjerde, Kvam, Norway instead of the specified exact place of Kvinnherad. But I do still get all 1,334 when I open the link in Safari.
Why does the browser used make a difference in the search results?0 -
Paul said: Lundgren
Please see thread at https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea..., too.
Interesting that Gordon seems to have uncovered a possible browser issue - I am having my problems in using Chrome. Whatever the reason, I totally disagree with EChilds comment, " I love that the search has expanded to include dates beyond the range one enters". I hate Ancestry searches (and to a lesser extent FMP), as they do exactly what FamilySearch is now performing - prioritise exact/close matches, then add an endless list of results totally irrelevant to my search.
Why did you and your colleagues change Robert Kehrer's excellent enhancement of making an "exact search" just that? As Gordon says here (and in my example at the other thread) we need an easy way to sure the required event is not buried within a huge return of results. If the census suggests my relative was born in 1843, I expect to be able to input "1841-1845" as the date range for his birth and not see others of his (or a similar) name, born many years either side of this range.
Why bother having an "exact match" check box if it doesn't produce exact-match results?0 -
Paul said: BTW - Thanks for reminding us about using the Filters feature. Of course, this does help produce the desired results, but naturally it adds time to making searches and tends to be overlooked by inexperienced users.0
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Lundgren said: We are working on releasing a new interface. We are doing a controlled release. (This is a very common industry practice.)
As we do this it is possible that you may get a different interface on one browser (or session) than another.
As of right now, the bug is still occurring in the new interface, a fix is prepped to go out though that should correct it.0 -
Lundgren said: I did see that thread, many times community members are able to explain what is going on.
-The exact button next to the place does not apply to the year range.
-The values in the query parameters are not a filters, those exist down below.
I worked with Robert for many years while he was involved in the search systems. We have not changed the behavior of exact name or place searching as of yet.
I can tell you that for the last 10 years at least, exact as not applied to years. The check box on the UI has been moved a bit to try to make it evident to users that it only applies to the place and not the year, but the back end functionality remains the same.0 -
Paul said: Would be most grateful if you could advise of the "expected" limited range of results when entering, say, "1860-1865" as a date range. Currently, as you acknowledge, there is a problem and many of us are finding NO date restriction. You say things will revert to how they were before, but what does / did that mean? An expected 10 years +/- return, for example? I never was able to figure out quite how things worked - though it was naturally nothing near the example of the 519 results I am currently getting (no date range restriction) when searching for a William Wrightson born in England in 1800.0
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Lundgren said: I am sorry I was not more clear.
When you enter a date range in a search parameter, records that fall within that range should come back sooner in the result set.
Consider this search that returns about 600,000 results:
https://www.familysearch.org/search/r...
Now add a birth year range and notice that the order of the changes:
https://www.familysearch.org/search/r...
If you want to limit the results down to the range queried, you can add a filter and note that the number of results returned is now down to about 35,000 results:
https://www.familysearch.org/search/r...
You can further narrow the results by filtering to a place which now returns less that 1000 results:
https://www.familysearch.org/search/r...
Right now, the system is still impacted by the bug causing results to not reorder the way we want them too.
When the system is working as intended a range of one year (ie 1940) would cause records from 1935-1945 to be returned sooner in the result set than ones outside of that range, with dates in the very center of the range coming higher than results at the ends of the range.
The single year range boosting +-5 years instead of only the year specified is a legacy feature of the UI.
A range of 1945-1947 would only cause records from 1945 to 1947 to come back sooner with 1946 coming before 1945 and 1947.
The team over the UI is working very hard on several fronts and is working to improve the behavior, but it may take some time.0 -
Paul said: Sorry, but in my ten years of working in FamilySearch I have never had to go to these lengths to get my total results down to, say, single figures, even without the use of filters. I would be glad to hear other users' experiences - whether to confirm what I am saying or to contradict me.0
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Lundgren said: If I were trying to narrow the results down, I would generally add things that I would expect to be on the record.
This search was done intentionally broad to illustrate the differences between a year range query and filters. Has it helped to clarify what I was trying to explain?0 -
Gordon Collett said: Lundgren,
Thanks for the detailed information. This morning I realized that the reason this broad range of years in results seems new is because I do far more searches that include a parent's name than don't. This really helps the search work better.
Knowing that at some point the sorting will work properly so that as soon as there is any date outside the specified range all the results can be ignored will help in interpreting the results. This used to be marked by the blue bar that stated something like "the following results don't match but might be of interest" that was done away with a couple of years ago.
From what I have seen, and from what you have explained, I think I have a better understanding of the search team's goals. Or I may just be more confused than ever. When the new routine is completely rolled out and working properly, is this how we will see the results ordered when there is a date range specified and an exact place specified?
1) All results within the date range and showing the exact place.
2) All results within the date range and places that are close to the exact place.
3) All results showing the exact place and ignoring the date range.
That is what seems to be happening in the example I gave above. There are no type 1 results so first are listed the type 2 results, then the type 3 results.
(I'm sorry, but I find this whole "the date range is not a filter, just a suggestion" concept to be confusing, illogical and counter-intuitive both in the search routine and in Family Tree. It obscures the fact there are no results, which is just as important as seeing there are some, by giving a bunch of non-applicable results. It's like going to the grocery store and asking where the jam is and being taken to the canned vegetable aisle. It's like when I search on Ancestry There are always many dozen pages of results but I have discovered that it is never worthwhile to go beyond the first page. It is much more efficient and effective to revise the search and check a different first page of results.)0 -
Juli said: Like Paul, I hate Ancestry searches. It basically thinks it's smarter than me: "there's very little to match what you put in, but there's lots of matches if you add/omit/modify to XYZ, so here are all the search results for the [totally-different] search that I in my infinite wisdom think you actually meant to input."
FS used to be different: it actually believed you knew what you were doing, and presented broadened-search results as mere suggestions. And if you put in an exact name or place or date range, it actually believed you, and didn't show results that didn't match exactly or fit the range.
It had its faults, of course -- sometimes names that were a single insignificant character different (Nyiri versus Nyiry comes to mind) ended up below the blue line, for example, but it was nothing like today, where it seems like my search inputs are not even being taken under advisement. Exact matches for some value of "exact" that I am totally unfamiliar with, date ranges ignored wholesale, and no rhyme or reason to the order that things are presented in (actually-exact matches well below the not-even-close ones, etc.).
Add the infuriating "add a surname" red banner on two searches in three, and the end result is a search that has been dumbed down beyond any usefulness. I can no longer trust that when I enter a placename, it's actually looking in that place, and it seems to have lost many of its given name equivalents, too, so I can no longer trust that if I looked for Catherina, it also checked for Katalin (or vice versa).0 -
Lundgren said: The blue line, that has been removed, was an arbitrary line. The reason we removed it was you could frequently find good results below the line.
Once the new interface change is completely deployed, you should not see a material difference in the results for the same search parameters.
You can explore the new interface (regardless of what session you land on) by going to http://beta.familysearch.org/search.
You can try adding more alternate parents to a search, or downloading results in more formats than what is currently supported.
There are other changes behind the scenes.
For your three options above. None are exactly correct. How about this:
4) places with the exact box checked will be narrowed down to the same or more specific places. Dates will be used to modify the sort order of the results.
Places more specifically:
If you search for Adams, Colorado, United States, and check the box next to it, then you will see records for places that are inside Adams County, Colorado, United States, That includes multiple cites inside that county, not limited to Broomfield, Northglenn, Thornton, Westminster.
If you search for Adams Country, Colorado, United States, you will see records that just list that county, as well as records we believe come from cities in that county. You will also see other records in Colorado, United States, but they should come lower in the sort priority than those inside Adams County.
There are also records that are not specific enough to allow us to correctly determine their place. If the record says ONLY "Denver" as a birth place, we are forced to guess which Denver it meant. We may be able to gather more information to narrow the guess down to the correct place, but we might get it wrong. For an example of how we would guess about a record that only says Denver, with no other hints you can look at this tool:
https://www.familysearch.org/research...
More detail on dates:
Many records do not have birth/death dates. Consider a marriage record that indicates a person was married in 1862. From that date, you could estimate that the people getting married were probably born somewhere from 1800-1845. You could probably reasonably guess that they died somewhere around 1870-1920.
Our search UI is currently built cater to people who are professional genealogists all the way to people who are touching it for the first time in their lives. That is a very hard thing to do. The team that designs and maintains the search interface have a fine line that they must walk to try to create a useful tool for the whole gambit. (The same problem all of our peer companies have.)
The question we have to answer with dates is:
Would the majority of our users like to see the marriage record that matches the the main name, the spouse names and all the parent names that they have put in exactly the search exactly, but does not have a birth year for the main person?
Currently, we have chosen to answer that question as "yes, they would." Because of this, we estimate the birth year for the record based on possible ranges and include that in the search. This will cause records without any birth year at all to come back in results.
Using the filters to narrow records down will offset the impact of the estimates, but may also filter out records that you might be interested in.
There can also be ambiguities in dates on records. Consider a birth date on this record:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/619...
It could … [truncated]0 -
Paul said: Excellent points, Juli. There have been frequent complaints over the years about the FamilySearch search routine but, under Robert Kehrer, its quality far exceeded Ancestry and most other websites I use.
Why go backwards? And I just don't get the comments of users like (poster) EChilds. if one wants results outside the "range one enters", why not just widen the range of dates inputted?
It's not only dates:
(1) I can't search on many towns/cities any longer, without including a county (or wildcard) being added - users must be frequently wondering why they are getting a "No Results" message, whereas, in the past, a whole list was produced.
(2) I have to view "Robert William" and "Thomas William" results now, as I cannot get purely "William" results in a First Name / exact match search. Please let ME use a wildcard if I want "---- William" results, too!
For the first time in my 8 years of using this forum I'm choosing one of those silly symbols to express my sadness in how I feel about the current situation.0 -
Lundgren said: I also would really like an advanced UI that lets us drive the search to do exactly what we tell it to do.
The fear however is that the UI already has lots of places to put information in. If we multiply the fields in the 10x to give full access to all the knobs by default it will overwhelm users. See google's advanced search https://www.google.com/advanced_search Most users don't use it, but the ones that do appreciate it.
We may be able to create an advanced interface as an alternate to a simple (simpler?) default interface. But, that is down the road a ways yet. (And I don't work on the user interface...)
For now, we believe the date bug is resolved and either the new or the old interface should return the same results. (The same date results we have known and [loved|hated] for the last 10 years).
Thanks again for the feedback!0 -
Adrian Bruce said: Gordon says: "I'm sorry, but I find this whole "the date range is not a filter, just a suggestion" concept to be confusing, illogical and counter-intuitive both in the search routine and in Family Tree"
I quite agree. If we are trying to make things understood by everyone then getting the computer to follow the instructions on the screen has to be mandatory. A date range is a date range and anything outside it should be either rejected or put below a bar like the old "Doesn't match but..."
It is seriously confusing to anyone to have the computer ignore its instructions. If someone enters a range on date of birth and we're looking at data that doesn't have a date of birth in the original, then either pass it through or pass it through below the "Doesn't match bar".0 -
Adrian Bruce said: "FS used to be different: it actually believed you knew what you were doing".
Yes. Why are people complaining about nonsensical data being added to profiles when the computer throws nonsense back? The newbies that we are concerned with, will just accept it because "The Computer says yes" or they'll think, "I didn't ask for that - this is a load of nonsense, when's the ball game on?"0 -
Adrian Bruce said: I would suggest that if FS wants to deploy search algorithms that give a user what FS thinks they need, rather than what they have actually asked for (and expertise in seeing results may have a point there), then the search results need to be split.
In order to reduce confusion and allow people to learn, the computer must follow the instructions set by the user - to start with. So "exact" must mean "exact" (and there are probably all sorts of issues with that!) and "range" must mean "range", not sort.
Then below that reinstate a band that says, "These aren't exactly what you asked for but may be of interest" - or possibly two bands saying "These are close to what you asked for" and "These aren't what you asked for but may be of interest". All the extra stuff that FS thinks we want (and not without justification) can go below one or the other of those lines.
I know that even in that simplistic view there are issues, e.g. If I want to search on "James Tiberius Kirk" and I've set exact on, should I expect to see "James Kirk", "James T Kirk", "J Tiberius Kirk", etc.??
Then if I search for marriages of Fred Bloggs born 1810-1830 (exact), how do I process marriages where there is no indexed (implied) year of birth? Rejecting marriages records with no indexed year of birth, even putting them under "These aren't what you asked for..." bars is, on reflection, nonsense. Experts will be entering a date range for the marriage. Newbies will expect the above query to return marriages. So the process of estimating births where none are entered seems logical.
So lots of issues - but one principle above all - the computer must do as it's asked to start with and "exact" must mean "exact" and "range" must mean "range", not sort. To do otherwise is to create confusion. Clever stuff can be provided lower down - but separated from the above to make it clear that the system hasn't taken leave of its senses.0 -
S. said: This is one area I wish Family search would improve.0
This discussion has been closed.