'Exact match' feature in upgraded 'find' function does not work.
What else is there to say? Trying to find a married couple, Georgii Dier and Elisabetha Martin in Mittelbexbach, Saarland, Germany. With no 'exact match' radio button checked, I get 98,947 matches. With the 'exact match' radio button checked on spouse last name field, I get the same 98,947 matches, the vast majority of entries which do not contain 'Martin' in the spouse last name field.
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Yeah, um, it's returning exact matches for some value of "exact" that I am not familiar with:
As if it weren't bad enough that they've now broken the interface to match the disimprovements in Search - Records, they're rubbing salt in the wound and breaking the mechanism as well.
FamilySearch, please stop disimproving things!
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Julia
'Yes' ...
The "Programmers", seem to be DRIVING, all the NEW "Changes" ...
The Users/Patrons, are certainly NOT driving, ANY of the NEW "Changes"
Unfortunately ...
The Users/Patrons, DO NOT, seem to have a say, in the matter ...
Obviously ...
The (Younger) Programmers, seem to be bent, on "Change", just for the sake of "Change" ...
[ And, obviously, of course, keeping up with NEW "Innovations", with "Coding" ... ]
REGARDLESS of; and, RATHER than, the, WANTS; DESIRES; and, NEEDS, of the Users/Patrons ...
It appears, that the Users/Patrons, NO LONGER have any, say; or, sway, any more ...
[ Especially, when it comes to the "Family Tree" Part of 'FamilySearch' ... ]
What an unfortunate development ...
We are TOLD, that the, "Designers"; "Developers"; &, "Programmers", DO use "Family Tree", of 'FamilySearch'.
But ...
That Said ...
One DOES have to wonder, about such ...
Brett
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I cannot duplicate what you are seeing. When I try what you show on screen, all I see is Elisabetha Matins, many of them. Please add the URL you were trying
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@GaryKing I was just saying the same to someone offline. Even with no location selected, I don't get that many matches for those 2 names, with or without "exact" checked.
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As the screenshot above shows, I was able to replicate the problem without any trouble: https://www.familysearch.org/search/tree/results?count=100&exactSearching=true&q.givenName=Georgii&q.spouseGivenName=Elisabetha&q.spouseSurname=Martin&q.spouseSurname.exact=on&q.surname=Dier
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If I start from search - with no location or record type selected - and just those 2 names, I get: Results (60,406)
Normally, I start from a location. If I start from Germany, with no record type or province selected, I get: Filtered Results (1,222).
I admit I almost NEVER use exact name on any search unless I've found the record before and I know how it was spelled and extracted.
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I haven't a clue what's going on here. I even repeated the search with all lowercase letters, to match Áine's inputs exactly, and I got 98,946 results, with "Alterin" as the spouse's name in the second result, and "Kuntz" in the third one, same as in the screenshot.
So two questions: one, in what universe is Kuntz an exact match to Martin, and two, why are different people getting such wildly different results from exactly the same search inputs?
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1. I think Aine was searching Records not Family Tree (note the different parameters).
2. The Family Tree search algorithm appears to be changing similar to Search>Records - cast a wide net then apply filters. If I filter to continental europe> Germany results filter to 503. As far as exact matching ... Again it reminds me of search> records changes this past year ... I would expect the algorithm to have better results in time...
3. The developers are just implementing approved changes. That they don't notify Community - though bothersome - is common development practice. Unfortunately they don't need to notify Community nor need Community approval for changes - there is no 'contract'.
I expect these changes will go over about as well as Search> Records has. As far as why ... I can guess ... Probably developing for the 'future'.
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Please clarify if your search was from the "Find" section of Family Tree (as I thought was the case), or in using the "Search" function at https://www.familysearch.org/search/.
Using "Find" I got just 8 results (but none an exact match) when adding a placename (first link) but 7,083 if I omitted this - all "Exact" boxes checked.
I don't think "Find" has ever produced only "Exact" matches - before or after its revamp - regardless of what boxes were checked.
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Update - I just noticed that using "Mittelbexbach*" as the place name (with Exact box checked) did limit the results to just (8) records having that place name. So at least it works for that (Place) field - a shame it doesn't do so for people's names!
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Find in Family Tree should have different results adding 'place' - theoretically these are all user-created profiles (excepting nFS initially added ones) - so if 'place' is known should be included in the search - unless you are trying the 'less is more' approach.
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I was using the find function in family tree, not the search records, images or whatever. And yes, the old find function worked exactly as advertised. If I checked the ‘exact match’ radio button for spouse last name, I would get only those records with the last name I provided I have been doing this for years. Until this week, when the find function was “improved”. Now exact match simply doesn’t work.
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For me "exact match" has never been exact. I am unable to separate spelling variants such as Verry and Verrij, for example. Drives me nuts!
But this week, yeah, Find has been more broken than usual. A day or two ago for a few hours it was totally offline with no notice.
Call it growing pains and look forward to exploring the result?
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As I think I remember from years ago - FS search AND find both use 'other information' on a PID as part of the search criteria.
So, if a PID for "Jon Smith" has 'other info' showing a 'name' of (anything) e.g. Joe Blxft 'search' will include THAT in any search.
It might be helpful to check this in possible problem in some of these strange search results.
Briefly, check (and remove) 'other info' on PID & see what effect it has on results. FWIW
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Please just put the “Find” function back the way it was. You can’t improve on perfect. I have wasted so much of my time it is discouraging. Please tell me how I can find the “Find” function the way it used to be and give me that choice. I can assure you that the older users of this site are very discouraged
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Peggy
I am just another 'lowly' User/Patron ...
Just in passing ...
I am sorry ...
I am just being REALISTIC here ...
There is NO point ... 'beating around the bush' ...
Like it or not ...
The NEW "Find" feature/facility/function, is here to STAY ...
I would humbly suggest, that 'FamilySearch', will NOT, "Reverted" BACK, to the PREVIOUS "Version" ...
But ...
That Said ...
I am certain, that 'FamilySearch', WILL keep "Tweaking", the NEW "Find" feature/facility/function ...
Just my thoughts.
Brett
ps: It is the YOUNGER Generations, who are NOW driving, 'FamilySearch' ...
pps: Us OLDER Generations, have very little say, in the way thing are heading ... ie. the way of the future ...
.
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@CaptBob, the complete disregard of the "exact" checkboxes does not appear to have anything to do with Other Information. That section was either empty or did not contain the input name on all of the non-matches I checked in this search: https://www.familysearch.org/search/tree/results?count=100&q.givenName=Adam&q.spouseGivenName=Marianna&q.spouseGivenName.exact=on&q.spouseSurname=M%C3%BCller&q.spouseSurname.exact=on&q.surname=Gauder
I asked for exact matches to spouse = Marianna Müller, and got spouses named Susanna Muller, Martin Muller, Marianna Riczinger, Marianna Jauch, Anna Catharina Müller, Annam Mariam Bellem [someone needs a Latin lesson there], Marianna Ott, no spouse, Michael Muller, etc.
I just re-did the above search with the "exact" boxes checked on the primary search name, Adam Gauder. The second and third results are Adamus, fourth is Christianus, fifth is Magdalena.
There's no two ways about it: Find is completely ignoring the "exact" checkboxes. They do not work at all.
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Thanks for checking that, as I said 'FWIW'.
'Someone' in Tech and/or programming should be able to fix all of these search/find issues - but,again, I am neither tech nor programmer, just a user trying to use the system.😊😊
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I think this is how Find and Search are designed to work, when faithfully respecting the exact match would return nothing, so the user gets something even if not the result they want.
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All of the tests I've made had actual exact matches, i.e. none of them would have been empty.
The current behavior is to return identical results regardless of the state of the checkboxes. In other words, they may as well not be there. Not having them would be better, in fact, because ignoring them like this is insulting at best, but more like infuriating, and I cannot believe it to be intentional.
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That is my point. This is clearly an oversight by the programmers, easily fixed, but there appears to be no way to contact them for bug fixes, other than indirectly through this community. In the meantime, all I can do is NOT HAVE a very useful feature I used to have before the programmers “improved” the find function.
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All of the tests I've made had actual exact matches, i.e. none of them would have been empty.
Ah. Isn't that the opposite case then? And definitely a problem.
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Yes, Find is broken. Right now, doing an exact match for a very rare name, I am getting over 30,000 results.
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Find, exact match on surname seems to be working now but exact match on death place is not.
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@dontiknowyou, it's still not working at all on given names or spouses or anything else. I just searched for Adam Gauder, with spouse Marianna Müller, all marked exact, and the second result is for Johannes Gauder married to Anna Catharina Müller, and the fifth one is for Petrus Gauder married to Marianna Jauch. (https://www.familysearch.org/search/tree/results?count=100&q.givenName=Adam&q.givenName.exact=on&q.spouseGivenName=Marianna&q.spouseGivenName.exact=on&q.spouseSurname=M%C3%BCller&q.spouseSurname.exact=on&q.surname=Gauder&q.surname.exact=on)
(For what little it's worth, the exact box on the surname does get rid of Laurentius Gawadad and Domenico Gaudariello from the first 100 results.)
(I don't think it's new behavior that Find doesn't show Gander as a likely match to Gauder. It should, as the two names can look completely identical in handwritten records. Gander should certainly be a much, much more likely match than Gawadad, anyway.)
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Could this be related?
https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/120619/blank-search-results
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No, the blank pages (header and footer, nothing in between, no matter how long you wait) are just FS being glitchy. It was doing it to me last night in the image browser, the book browser, search, and index entries. Sometimes, clicking the browser's Back and then Forward buttons worked, sometimes not so much.
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I was having some problems yesterday when I was at my Affiliate Library. Blank pages, inability to download records that normally can be downloaded, and other annoyances.
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