Home› Welcome to the FamilySearch Community!› FamilySearch Help› Search

Catalog entry is a huge mess -- can it be cleaned up?

dmh49
dmh49 ✭
March 10, 2022 edited March 22, 2022 in Search

The following catalog section is supposed to contains records from the 5th notary of Bogotá, Colombia: https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/2813179


This section is a huge mess, not only does it include images from the 5th notary, but it also includes:

-indexes from the 1st notary

-indexes from the 4th notary

-civil cases from a completely different province (Bolívar, on the Atlantic coast)

-population censuses from all around the country

-criminal records from Valle del Cauca (near the Pacific coast)

The disorganization causes not only a eyesore but also makes the improperly categorized documents underutilized. Also, it seems like many of the records are still not available for online viewing, despite having first popped up years ago. There is seemingly no rhyme or reason for which record is available for online viewing, and there is no structure to how they are sorted. You have various years all over the place, there are only a handful of records that are actually in sequential order.


This isn't the only entry like this -- the following is supposed to contain municipal records for Bogotá, yet only a few actually pertain to that city. The overwhelming majority are for the 1928 census in the Chocó department: https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/3041210

Altogether these are super disorganized, personally I'm even willing to assist in cleaning it up.

image.png
image.png


0

Best Answer

  • Paul W
    Paul W ✭✭✭✭✭
    March 11, 2022 edited March 11, 2022 Answer ✓

    @Daniel.Hall

    The FamilySearch Catalog has been "locked" for well over a year now in preparation for a new version. We will probably not know when this situation will change (i.e. edits by the administrators will be possible again) until the new version appears on the website, after which I assume reported errors will be rectified. Better to keep a note of them for now and report again at a later date.

    0

Answers

  • A van Helsdingen
    A van Helsdingen ✭✭✭✭✭
    March 11, 2022

    Restrictions on online viewing are determined by a contract between the record custodian/owner and FamilySearch. The first image definately shows illogical viewing restrictions. I suspect that FamilySearch has wrongly implemented the contract, but it is possible that the record custodian specifically asked for some year's records to not be available online. Perhaps there are sensitive legal records that they don't want published.

    0
  • A van Helsdingen
    A van Helsdingen ✭✭✭✭✭
    March 11, 2022

    Even though the Catalog is locked, viewing restrictions can still be changed- I have seen with my own eyes examples of this. But the labels/titles of items and the order they are presented on the page cannot be edited until the new version of the Catalog is released.

    0
  • dmh49
    dmh49 ✭
    March 11, 2022
    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/434998#Comment_434998

    I don't believe these are intended to be private -- these years can openly be requested at the National Archive in Colombia. Also, some DGS numbers from the 1950s are available, yet random ones from the 1900s are restricted still. They come in volumes, in some cases the volumes alternate, with 1-3, 5, and 7 available and the remainder are not.

    0
Clear
No Groups Found

Categories

  • 30.2K All Categories
  • 24.3K FamilySearch Help
  • 127 Get Involved
  • 2.7K General Questions
  • 443 FamilySearch Center
  • 463 FamilySearch Account
  • 4.5K Family Tree
  • 3.4K Search
  • 4.7K Indexing
  • 639 Memories
  • 6.6K Temple
  • 326 Other Languages
  • 34 Community News
  • 6.6K Suggest an Idea
  • Groups