Friday 10 February 2012

Derbyshire records on FamilySearch

FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org) has added just under 190,000 indexed parish records from the Church of England for Derbyshire from 1538-1910. The collection can be searched directly at https://familysearch.org/search/collection/show#uri=http://familysearch.org/searchapi/search/collection/1911752.

Also if you're a fan of the Classic FamilySearch site (http://classicfamilysearch.org), the institution has announced it is planning to kill off Classic FamilySearch very soon. From the comments on the post, it would appear that the majority of its users, or at least those motivated enough to comment, would like to send them home to think again. For more on the story see www.familysearch.org/node/1554.

Chris

4 comments:

  1. Oh dear! I'm still one of the fans of what I call "old family search" (and yes, I still use "old search" on Ancestry too!). I just like to know where I can find the records which were previously on the IGI, as I understand their limitations and know how to use the database. I still haven't found the equivalent in the New Familysearch - I believe the contents of the IGI are still there, but scattered.

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  2. The IGI extracted records are now included in "Records", along with all new digitised/indexed material and additional stuff from the BVRI. There were previously various forms of uncorroborated patron submissions in the IGI and via Pedigree Resource Files and Ancestral Files - I think I'm right in saying some of these are in "Trees" now, and some are still to be added. (But happy to be corrected!). Patron submissions I think are now going to another site, New FamilyTree, but to be honest, beyond the basics I lose the plot with FamilySearch - so many different sites with similar names. Another FS site, for example, is a database site called Community Trees at http://histfam.familysearch.org/index.php

    I'm still not a fan of the new FS set up, though it does have much more material available. It's just not user friendly, bottom line. But I suspect no matter how much people kick up about it, they'll just keep telling everyone it will be OK in the end. I thought the blog comment on the lines of "oh, we hadn't realised we'd lost the link to classic FS on our site" was frankly patronising!

    Chris

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  3. There are problems with the current FamilySearch site - the main one being that even if you know fairly precisely what you are looking for, you have to go through a lot more steps to get there than you had to on the previous site. However, I don't think the old search options would be sufficient with the kinds of records that are now appearing on FamilySearch - school or workhouse records for example.

    For us in the UK, now that the British Isles has it's own collection group, I think a solution to many of our frustrations would be to add a search box for just that grouping - rather like the search UK and Irish Collections only option on Ancestry. That way you wouldn't find yourself having to wade through hundreds of US census results when you were really looking for a birth in Birmingham, for example.

    I agree with Rosemary that you could often find useful information in the IGI (such as entries from Scottish Parish Registers which aren't included in other collections). However I do find it kind of funny that for years genealogists have been complaining about what a lot of nonsense was included in the IGI and how it couldn't be trusted and yet we're so loath to see it go!

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  4. On the IGI it was usually easy to determine which entries were patron submissions and which extracts, but even if you couldn't it was easy enough to go for the extracted records only with access via Hugh Wallis or Scots Origins. The potential of the new site is spot on, but the execution has been fairly poor, and I totally agree about the place names - for ages I was having to wade through records in Blackford in America because the site did not recognise a place called Blackford in Scotland, for example. The old site's catalogue was also much easier to use than the new one, for example.

    On the plus side, there are more extracted records on the new site, including more nonconformist records, and the new British Isles classification is a definite improvement, but I agree, a search box across the lot would be useful. I think Audrey Collins must have put the fear of God into them on that front with the brilliant lecture she did for them on the differences between all the different countries, unions, islands etc within the British Isles!

    To be honest, my real issue is that an element of tedium has now come into the search experience on the site. We'll get used to it, because we have to. But there must be better ways to keep a community with you when making changes that they will have to adapt to. My other issue is actually just an aesthetic one - I think the new site looks really bland with its washed out colours, and lots of white space, so fairly visually tiring. I can think of a discussion forum that did something similar recently, and the number of users has plummeted as a consequence.

    So I agree with all FS is trying to do, I just think it could have been better done. But it's a moot point - it is what it is, and we'll have to like it or lump it!

    Chris

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