FamilySearch new format

[BushInn1746]

The camera icon with a key above it means

Access the site at a family history center.
Access the site at a FamilySearch affiliate library.

 ...

This weekend I was logged on to FS, saw the camera icon and when clicking on it, it took me to their image viewer which was blank and displayed the above message.

I have both FindMyPast and Ancestry too, but couldn't seem to get these pre c.1800 images for Nocton, Lincolnshire, on these subscription sites?

The other problem with the new format, I couldn't also search and tick individual boxes to search exact spellings (as before) and end up with too many unnecessary returns.

I often don't want to make everything in my search form an exact spelling request.

Mark

[Gallicrow]

I hated the new format at first, but I have to admit I'm quickly getting to like it. I think the problem was that there were so many options that it was becoming impossible to show them all using the old format.
Regarding exact matches - what happens for me is when I select the "Show Exact Search" toggle in the bottom right corner, all the edit fields have a tick box labelled "Exact" added under them. These start off unticked and you have to tick the ones you want to be an exact match.

[aghadowey]

Have been using new format of FS for the last few days (no choice really) investigating lots of Danish records that I hadn't found years ago on the microfilm* or a few years earlier online.
At first it was a disaster (well when the names I'm searching for are Jensen & Christensen in Denmark it wasn't surprising). Fortunately I had lots of information to start because I think it would have been extremely difficult otherwise.
It took me a good while to figure out how the tabs now work to narrow down results** but unable to select exact matches the same as previously (or else I just haven't figured that out yet).

After spending the weekend on this bit of family I'm very pleased to have found 22 previously unknown (to us and my uncle) 1st cousins of my uncle's, 1 uncle we have only a name for, another uncle we hadn't heard of before, a third one who didn't vanish but simply changed his surname!

* saw that someone mentioned ordering specific films to local LDS library but as far as I know that was discontinued a few years earlier.
** was a comment out searching with Norfolk in the search box then having to select that for birthplace but it really does make sense as you could have a person living in Norfolk (say in 1881 census) but born elsewhere, etc.

One big concern is how very, very easy they've made it to add someone to a family tree 

[BumbleB]

One big concern is how very, very easy they've made it to add someone to a family tree 

But, isn't that one of the main reason for FS? 

I'm sure I've told this one before - I was at our local FS research room and a lady was being assisted to upload her tree onto the site.  "But, I'm not sure that I've got the correct wife for this man."  The response was "It doesn't matter." 

 

[Tickettyboo]

Thanks for confirming that it's not only me Jool

Looks like Family search has a LOT more work to do. It will be wonderful when/if they are able to provide those images as per the listings.

On the whole the images that give the message that they are only viewable at an FHC, means the record holders will not grant permission for them to  be publically viewable on the web. Though the agreement does include them being viewable at an FHC.

Given that Essex archives generate income via Seax from records  I'd doubt they would ever supply that permission.

Boo

[Tickettyboo]

As it happens, there is a family history center in Quito but I've never visited it.  Probably something like "England, Essex Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1971" would have to be ordered on microfilm because there wouldn't be much demand for it here.

That may have been the case years ago, but the ordering in of microfilms stopped a long while ago.

I do visit a local FHC (though they are all still closed here atm) and can confirm that the system for digitised records is that they are held on a server someone up in the ether and are accessed at the FHC via their internet connection.

I assume the 'authorisation' is their IP address at the FHC as I sometimes use their net connection on my laptop (therefore using the same IP address) and can see the all the images. Obviously as I am physically AT  the FHC , neither if us are breaking any rules.

Boo

[coombs]

Anyone who finds that the new FamilySearch search format sucks, I agree with them. A month on I still find the new search totally abysmal, hence why I have not used it a quarter as much as I did previously.

[jonwarrn]

They have made some slight tweaks, and searching gets easier with practice.

As to the Essex non-conformist records, including those from other counties, a lot of those records, certainly pre 1837, are going to be the ones held at TNA. They are not generally viewable at home on FS, but you can of course see them on other websites.

Having a quick search for later records, the first ones I looked at were in fact from Essex parish church registers, not non-conformist at all. One even had a link to the BT image.

[Flemming]

Anyone who finds that the new FamilySearch search format sucks, I agree with them. A month on I still find the new search totally abysmal, hence why I have not used it a quarter as much as I did previously.

Couldn't agree with you more. It is just awful. I used to whizz around the site getting info. Now extracting anything out of it is as slow as a slow thing. A really great asset lost, and all for the sake of 'improvements' that weren't necessary. It was a great system as it was. Why is there a desire to make changes all the time? It's not just FS, it's with so many things these days. It's change for the sake of it, not because it's truly needed. Instead of messing up the format, perhaps FS would have been better off looking into the accuracy of some of its transcriptions. But that's not glammy enough, is it?