Estate and wills records
I am unable to access South African records I previously had added. These contained dates, the narrative to childcare decisions made etc. I notice these are mostly death records that are now not available. Estate files and wills. Any solution will be appreciated.
Answers
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@amandameinhardt Can you provide some more detail on exactly how you are trying to access these records?
You say that you have previously added the records; I assume that you mean that you have attached them to profiles. Are the records still listed in the profiles' Sources table? If so, what is the system's response if you try to view the source or the image?
Are you perhaps receiving hints in your home page or finding them attached to profiles, and then getting an error message when you try to look at the record?
Details such as the collection name(s) that are affected, whether all records within those collections are affected or just some records, error messages, and an example or two of links to affected records would help answer your question.
This could be another example of restrictions which are being applied by FamilySearch to numerous collections (or parts of them). There have been numerous discussions here in recent months about this subject.
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Hi Julian,
I see the discussions with possibly same problems, albeit described differently. Jesè posted a similar issue.
my problem relates to images/ records that are now restricted. With 'error message' stating the following-
Image access is typically determined by local laws or the custodian who has the original document.
Is there an official explanation? Italian privacy act and accessibility of records seem much clearer. Is there an explanation. Or solution to obtaining access to South African records? It is just the Estate and Wills that are now unavailable. Interestingly, they used to be just after death certificates. So if you never paged on, you would never know they were there. I now want to kick myself for not downloading every single document that I have painstakingly searched and checked over the past six or seven years.
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@amandameinhardt The South African probate collection has recently been updated to restrict records dated after 1944. Although there were a number of errors, most have now been corrected through review. If you notice films within the new guidelines that remain restricted, please inform us.
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@SerraNola There are numerous films in this catalog that are still restricted for 1850s and 1900s https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/koha:195564
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I am not connected with FamilySearch.
My understanding is that any digitised microfilms whose location is the Granite Mountain Record Vault are not accessible to anyone at all for an indefinite period. (This may change in the future)
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@SerraNola
thank you. Can you direct me to where these and other guidelines are on this site? If they are.
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@gary_noble @amandameinhardt Thank you and sorry for the misinformation. These are the two collections I sent for review a month ago: https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/koha:331262 and https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/koha:188051
Clearly, mistakes have also been made in these estate files for Orange Free State and I will report to the Rights Management team.
To answer the question concerning where to find the guidelines, they are not published on the FamilySearch site. With so many record collections and contracts and regulations constantly changing it would be near impossible to keep it updated.
Lastly, to clarify the state of records in the Granite Mountain Vault—only the physical microfilms are not accessible to anyone. The availability of digitized copies is subject to contractual agreements and local regulations.
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