Record hints
Just wondering, why do record hints suddenly disappear? This has happened multiple times on and off. Recently I had over 700 and now it's dropped to 16. I've had this happen many times before. The records may suddenly reappear just as fast as they vanished.
Just wondering why? And is there anyway to make them come back sooner? They've been missing about 5 days now.
Thanks 😊
Answers
-
Records become unavailable when the agreement between FamilySearch and the organization that owns or manages the record changes. FamilySearch may lose access to the record or place new restrictions on how a user can view it. Read this help article to learn more about this. https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/why-have-some-historical-records-disappeared-from-familysearch
0 -
I don't think that's the reason.
In my case my homepage list of hints has dropped from 400+ a few days ago to 11 today. But looking around the tree perhaps 5 or 6 generations I can see dozens, perhaps 100+ profiles with hints. So the records are still available and the hints are still there on the individual profiles, but not on the homepage like they were just a few days ago.
1 -
I can definitely look into the issue. It would be easier if you could share a few examples from your tree. If you could provide the PID for some of your individual profiles.
Try https://www.familysearch.org/en/campaign/temple-tools and scroll down to Record Hints. Let us know what you think of the Temple Opportunities Campaign.
0 -
Same here. I have to search for hints the hard way.
0 -
The hint lists are not intended to show you all the available record hints for your ancestors. That could be thousands of hints. Instead, it chooses a depth in your tree to look for hints so that you will see a reasonable number of hints in your list. That depth might be 5 generations back and one generation down. If that depth shows 15 hints, for example, then the system doesn't need to look any deeper to find hints. But if that depth produces only 5 hints, then the system looks deeper — it might look 6 generations back and one down. It's entirely possible that going back one more generation might produce hundreds of hints you hadn't seen before, so a large jump is quite possible. Note that the numbers I used are just for illustration purposes — I don't know what the actual thresholds are.
The reverse is also possible. Because of changes in the Tree, availability of records, or attachments or detachments made by you or others, it may become true that a few more hints are available at a lesser depth than before, so that lesser depth is used, and you see the member of hints in your list drastically decline.
But whatever happens, rest assured that FamilySearch will do its best to make sure that hints are always available to you, even if the size of the list may fluctuate up or down over time.
5 -
The same thing just happened to me. I was down to about 12 hints on the main start page, then one day it ballooned to around 1,500 hints. It was clear that FamilySearch had gone back another generation (many hints for second cousins, etc.). However, as I was working through many of these hints, it suddenly went back down to the same 12 hints that were there before the expansion. It would be nice to be able to select the numbers of generations up/down for which to show hints. Or, at the very least, this should not suddenly change back-and-forth.
2 -
Yes, mine is still stuck at 9. Keep hoping it will return to the 700 plus.
0 -
I really think there's a glitch somewhere. My hints have still not returned. Stuck at 5.
0 -
Starting in the year 2025 privacy laws began to change in many countries. These privacy laws vary from country to country and can vary from state to state in the United States. This can make it very frustrating for all of us striving to search for records and collect information that tell our ancestor's life stories. I empathize with your frustration. It is something that FamilySearch has no control over, but I know that they are working hard behind the scenes, working with those that have legal ownership of records. FamilySearch owns many of the historical records available. They also preserve and care for other records, or manage access to them, without necessarily owning them. FamilySearch is also a digitizing partner in creating digital copies under an agreement that specifies how those copies may be used. FamilySearch is also an Indexing partner. So they are subject to all the privacy laws in the countries and states who own the records. Here is some information I found in a help article that might explain it better than I.
Why did some historical records disappear from FamilySearch?
Records become unavailable when the agreement between FamilySearch and the organization that owns or manages the record changes. FamilySearch could lose access to the record, or place new restrictions on how a user can view the record.
When you can no longer view a record on FamilySearch, we suggest the following possible solutions:
- Try to access the record later. If our agreement is under review, we hope to be able to republish the record in the future.
- Find the record in the FamilySearch Catalog, and become familiar with its restrictions. See if you can view the record at the FamilySearch Library, a local FamilySearch center, or perhaps through another website.
Related articles
Why do historical records have access limitations?
What are the image restrictions in Historical Records?0