Indexed collections are sometimes of very limited value

LegacyUser

Paul said: I decided to check out the collection at https://www.familysearch.org/search/c..., as I had just received an email notifying me of the latest updates to Historical Records on FamilySearch.

There has obviously been a lot of work undertaken by volunteer indexers to get this information online, but it transpires to be of very little help in tracing events relating to ones Northumberland relatives. Most of the records have an event date, but merely show "England" as the place name. It was an "obvious" assumption that the results I got would all relate to Northumberland events but, scrolling through a long list of results relating to the surname Wilson, I not only found a limited number that actually did name that county, but some that named the county of Cumberland.

Perhaps the indexing project instructions have led to the omission of specific locations, or not naming them is due to a contractual agreement with the record custodian. Either way, most users interested in this record collection will find the detail provided to be of little use in finding the original records of events relating to their relatives.

Please go to https://www.familysearch.org/search/r... (and view page 5, etc.) to see what I am referring to.

Incidentally, this problem does relate to other collections, too. See https://www.familysearch.org/search/c..., for example, where a search sometimes does include a specific location, but often just a very unhelpful "Essex, England, United Kingdom" as the event place. To illustrate the problem in tracking down your relatives from this information, the county of Essex contained around 400 ancient parishes.

Before proceeding with a project, please consider how useful - after all the time and effort involved - the end result will prove to users.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Taking my usual huge statistical sample of one, which is the first entry on that response for Eleanor Wilson buried 7 Aug 1741 in "England", from collection "England, Northumberland Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1920"....

I have no certain knowledge of where that index comes from but the same event is recorded in FindMyPast once in the "National Burial Index For England & Wales" and a second time in "Durham Burials". In both cases FMP records "Transcriptions © Northumberland & Durham Family History Society"

So I rather suspect (but do not know) that the limitation on what data can be shown comes from the original data collection being copyright of the N&D FHS. My initial reaction to Paul's issue was that FS had wasted the efforts of its indexers by allowing substandard indexes out. I now suspect, however, that the copyright issues caused this, so FS just obtained the index from (whoever), stripped out the data to make it compliant with the agreement, and loaded it.

So, if we go to the "information" link on Eleanor Wilson's entry, it takes us to https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/... where we are told - well, very little, actually, just the phrases...
"However, rights to view these data are limited by contract and subject to change. Because of this there may be limitations on where and how images and indexes are available or who can see them"

All of which is perfectly true and - fairly useless because where is the instruction about what you have to do to fill in the gap in your knowledge??? I don't have the slightest issue with there being a restriction on the data shown - I do have a problem with the absence of any instruction about what to do.

Some newbies are quite liable to say, "No-one knows where Eleanor was buried" and go no further. But the documents do know where she was buried - and anyone with a subs to FMP will know... Where is the instruction to say, "Look at the image"? (OK - major issue with that instruction right now because no-one can get to FHCs or Afficilates but that's a minor detail!) Or to say, "Other sites may have the data"?

Surely dealing with incomplete indexes is a FS wide issue that should be written up once and referenced by all the Wiki articles?

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: I do have to say that a prompt to reference the Northumberland Wiki article on https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/... would go a long way towards telling someone how to get the missing data.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Previous problems with what I call "gross indexing errors" mentioned in discussion threads have been noted by someone from FamilySearch and, from what I can tell, resolved.

FamilySearch This is another one of those cases. Hopefully, someone will let the indexing folks know they have another gross error index, more along the lines of gross-missing-information-in-the-index problem. The index needs to be reprocessed so that the missing information is correctly recorded in the index.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Adrian

I believe in certain cases - including the one illustrated - you are right. I remember now that I, too, have performed searches in Find My Past and come across these results, which do not show the specific parish. Fortunately, FMP has very good coverage of the registers of many English counties, so I have been able to get to the original records (often images) from an alternative record for the same event, produced in the search results.

So your response probably does explain the reason for the vague detail in the Northumberland collection, but I'm not so sure a similar reason applies to the Essex one.

Your comment, "Surely dealing with incomplete indexes is a FS wide issue that should be written up once and referenced by all the Wiki articles?" is spot on. The "Learn more" links from the collection pages (even when previously, I believe, they did not lead to a Wiki page) have always presented a less-than-full explanation of the nature / source of the collection.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Tom

I had overlooked the possibility, as Adrian points out, that the index might not be one generated by a FamilySearch project, so might be subject to the limited detail we are seeing here. However, I am fairly sure this is not always the case - I particularly remember reading of the stages of progress for the FamilySearch Essex parish collection, for example. Unfortunately, we know from past experience that project instructions (e.g. not to include the age in burial indexing projects) have led to us not being presented with basic details that WERE available to FS indexers.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Yeah, I understand. Paul mentions burial records and that brought to mind the Find a Grave index that FamilySearch has in its collection. The index is and continues to be flawed because it contains a burial year, based upon the death date.

As was noted in a previous discussion on the Find a Grave index, the burial date will not necessarily be the same year as the death. In certain parts of the world, including northern states in the United States, bodies are stored until they can be interred after the spring thaw. Likewise, a person who died late in December my not be buried until the fallowing January (the next year).

I noted that the burial year is not included on the Find a Grave site. Nor, is it an editable field when entering new graves or correcting previous entries.

I'm not sure what FamilySearch was thinking when the imported the Find a Grave index, but they should not have added the burial year to the original index.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Re Essex - it's not an area that I'm familiar with, but if I recall correctly, Essex (Archives?) have their own paid system so maybe that has something to do with it??? This is, of course, speculation in the absence of a definitive statement about the arrangements (grin).

LegacyUser

Paul said: Yes, I agree this could well be a factor in the amount of detail (or rather lack of it) the FamilySearch indexed collection records are displaying. That is why I agree that the Wiki page should provide a detailed explanation of: the source of the collection, whether the indexing itself was carried out by FamilySearch (volunteers) or by an outside source, and the reasons (contractual or otherwise) that certain detail (e.g. parish name, age at death, etc.) might have been omitted.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Indeed. As far as I'm concerned, a suitable explanation would be "Exact locations omitted from index for commercial / copyright reasons". As it is, that might be the correct explanation or the correct explanation might be "We just couldn't be bovvered".

LegacyUser

David Newton said: I wonder if someone's ever tried to put that sort of information on the wiki? Oh yes I remember now they did try to put it on. The operative word being tried because the information was removed and they were threatened with sanctions for having put it on. I was then censored here for pointing out that the person who had done the removal on the wiki had broken the terms of service themselves by removing accurate and useful information, thus vandalising the wiki, and should have been banned from editing for doing so.

One rule for me and one rule for thee. Familysearch need to stick to their own public terms of service just as we need to. Hypocrisy is such an insidious thing isn't it.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Yes, I (and others) have tried to add such helpful advice to the wiki, but it has been removed without explanation. I would have attempted to put something on the wiki pages relating to these two specific collections but it seems only certain FamilySearch employees have the authority to do this.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Oh, so I needn't feel guilty about making suggestions to alter the Wiki rather than actually altering the Wiki!

LegacyUser

David Newton said: The user that removed the correct content from the wiki and thus vandalised it was a Familysearch employee or volunteer. The content that was removed was an addition to the article detailing the access restrictions for the collection. The restrictions noted were correct, but the truth and veracity of the information was not enough for it to be retained on the article apparently. Allegedly only the "legal team" at Familysearch can add such information to articles. There is no such public policy statement at the wiki use guidelines or code of conduct. So not only was vandalism committed by a Familysearch representative, but the Familysearch representative also purported to enforce non-existent rules on the wiki.

I've only ever edited that wiki once, and that was long before the access request requirement for editing was put in place for it. I never intend to go anywhere near editing it now for multiple reasons, one is which is the access request requirement, and another of which is this situation with vandalism and purported enforcement of non-existent rules.

LegacyUser

JimGreene said: Paul, sorry fo the delay in reporting back to you. I did pass your information on to the Indexing team. They were grateful for it and, (I know that we all hate to hear this) they have added it to their list of things to verify and correct. Their list is quite long, and with the tripling of volume that the indexing system has received since most of the world went into lockdown mode means that they have less time to get to it. Useful discussion nonetheless, and thank you for pointing it out. My opinion now follows. If this can be corrected easily with our data management tools we will not wait for the coming changes to the indexing system. However, I think any changes will most likely wait for the new system--timeframe unknown, estimates could be 1-2 years. Please don't let this discourage you too much, we are keeping track, reports like this are not lost.

LegacyUser

Paul said: Very much appreciate your efforts relating to this matter, Jim.