New FamilySearch, a view from the British Isles Part Three

Great Seal of Queen Anne 1707, commemorating the Act of Union of England and Scotland

Since my last post on this subject, I have been taking another close look at the collections in new FamilySearch that were formerly categorised as 'British Isles'. The fundamental problem with these records is that the place filters simply do not work. Unless this is sorted out, it will be very difficult for anyone searching British Isles records - England, Scotland, Ireland (North and South), Channel Islands, Isle of Man, or United Kingdom - to find what they are looking for, or even to know what is there to be searched in the first place. Some of the issues I have raised relate to this region, the one that I know best, but could apply equally to others; you can't filter by US state or Canadian province, which is just as bad as not being able to filter by county within the British Isles. But the way that the records here have been categorised is unique.

These lists don't match!

On the home page, scroll down to 'Browse by location' and select 'Europe'. You will see a list of 'countries' on the left, and a list of record collections on the right, in country order. The list of the left corresponds with the list on the right - up to a point. The list of countries on the left reads: Austria, Belgium, Channel Islands, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France ...and so on. The record collections mirror this exactly as far as Denmark, then the next collections are not from Finland, but England, which does not appear at all in the left-hand list.

The list on the left continues...Germany, Gibraltar, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland...but the right-hand list has Germany, Gibraltar, Great Britain, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy...etc. More record collections, this time for 'Great Britain' which have no counterpart on the left. The two lists continue in step almost to the bottom, where the last four countries listed on the left are Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Wales. Now if you look to the right-hand list of record collections, there is only Switzerland, Ukraine and Wales, the 'United Kingdom' record having been distributed, inaccurately, between England and Great Britain.

This discrepancy between countries and record collections ONLY occurs in relation to the British Isles records, and nowhere else in the whole of the Historical Records collections.

Collections in the wrong place

I have already mentioned some of the anomalies in my earlier posts, New FamilySearch, a view from the British Isles Part One and Part Two. There is a filter for Wales, but it contains only Probate Abstracts 1773-1780; the major collections of Wales, Births and Baptisms, Wales, Marriages, and Wales, Deaths and Burials are found within the United Kingdom filter. Also within the United Kingdom are the Great Britain collections: Great Britain Births and Baptisms, Great Britain Marriages and Great Britain Deaths and Burials. I had looked at these before, and found that they included some Irish records - all of Ireland used to be part of the United Kingdom, and part of it still is, but it has NEVER been part of Great Britain. The Irish Sea is in the way! Great Britain is the geographical term for 'the other island' as one of my Irish friends calls it.

Further investigation shows that the baptism register of St Peter's, Athlone and Drum, Roscommon, is included in Great Britain Births and Baptisms, which contains the baptism register of the Immaculate Conception Chapel, South Orange, Essex New Jersey! I also found a number of entries there from the Irish Civil Registration indexes. Naturally, I have reported this using the Feedback facility.

Overseas Records

There are in fact many more records classified as 'Great Britain' which do not belong there. These are not records that have been mistakenly put in the wrong place by someone with an imperfect understanding of British geography. These come from substantial collections of records which are held in London, but whose whole point is that they record events that took place OUTSIDE the British Isles. These comprise many thousands of events recorded in British churches and chapels overseas, or registered with British consulates, embassies and legations abroad. The original records are held at The National Archives in either the Foreign Office or General Register Office collections, or in the Bishop of London's 'International Memoranda' at the London Metropolitan Archives. A further large  collection of births, marriages and deaths at sea, held at The National Archives, is also included in 'Great Britain' by FamilySearch.

These records are not just relevant to researchers with British Isles ancestry; they include people from all nations, particularly the 'At Sea' records which include many records of foreign nationals who were passengers or crew on British-registered ships. They may be included here because they are held in British archives, but records from the India Office Collection, held at the British Library, are correctly indexed by FamilySearch under India, so we know it can be done. Time to hit the Feedback button again...

Frustrated by new FamilySearch?

It's new, it's different, and it has some great new features BUT many of us are having great difficulty getting to grips with it. This is partly because it is unfamiliar, and partly because some of the features we want are not there yet, but have been promised - notably batch numbers, which are so useful on the old site. But much more problematic are those areas where the site simply does not work properly, or returns inconsistent search results, and so on.

Some people want none of it, and just want the old, familiar FamilySearch to remain untouched. Well that isn't going to happen, and nor should it. The old site is what we are used to but it is far from perfect, and couldn't cope with the quantity and range of records being added to the new site, let alone links to images.

So FamilySearch is changing, and there will never be a better chance to influence the eventual design of the site. I have written about this in previous posts here, and Rosemary Morgan gives a detailed account in her London Roots Research blog. We have both encouraged people to make use of the Feedback button visible on every page of new FamilySearch, and I think it is worth expanding on this a little.

When you click on the button, you have a choice of links, and the one you want is:

"Share your ideas Click here if you have a great idea on how to improve FamilySearch "

This doesn't take you to an ordinary feedback form, but to the FamilySearch Community page, a discussion forum. You can simply record your feedback as a new item, or you can look at what other people have already written and add your comment to theirs. You will need to sign in to contribute, creating an account if you don't aleady have one - it's very easy. You can even vote on what people's comments by clicking on a button 'I like this idea' The more people vote on a particular post, the more it gets noticed. So if someone has already made your point, it makes a lot of sense to add your vote to it, and add an extra comment if you wish. Some of the comments are along the lines of 'You have ruined this site, it's rubbish', which might be heartfelt, and letting off steam can make you feel better, but it's unlikely to achieve much. It's much better to be specific, and to describe exactly what you think needs to be changed, and why.

I recently wrote a blog post about my biggest problem with the new site, the unsatisfactory and inconsistent place filters for the British Isles. I had already raised this issue in the FamilySearch Community which got some attention. If you agree with what I said there, you can click on the 'I like this' button, and get some more attenttion for it (hint, hint). At the time of writing this post, only about 2500 people had registered any feedback at all in the Community. That's not many, considering how many people must use FamilySearch every day. So if you use FamilySearch, and want to influence the way it is going to develop in future, TELL THEM WHAT YOU THINK.

Like all bloggers, I appreciate comments on my posts, but in this case I'd far rather that you click on one of the feedback links above, and get busy in the FamilySearch Community. See you there