Thursday, October 30, 2008

Record Search 27 October 2008 Update

The collection news dated 27 October 2008 on the FamilySearch Record Search pilot website (http://pilot.familysearch.org) indicates several updates have occurred or are currently in the pipeline.

  • Texas Deaths, 1890-1976 has been posted with "improved searchability." I assume that means problems have been fixed.
  • 1850 U.S. Census, all schedules - 3 states added for a total of 33 states/territories, 92% of the population.
  • 1860 U.S. Census - Coming soon with more than 17 states.
  • 1870 U.S. Census - 4 states added, bringing the total to 35 states with 74% of the population complete.
  • 1865 Massachusetts Census - Coming soon; initially includes browse images only.
Because this is a pilot, the links above to the collections will stop working some time in the coming months.

6 comments:

  1. Nope.. unfortunately the errors that I reported on the Texas Deaths (1890-1976) are still there. It's an issue of the index pointing to the wrong source records. I'm guessing that someone input the wrong number for a microfilm somewhere along the line. I analyzed the problem for them, but they never responded to my e-mail... and haven't yet fixed the problem. If anyone has suggestions as to what I should do next, please e-mail me at ellendunlap [at] gmail [dot] com.

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  2. Ellen,

    Can you post an example that demonstrates the problem?

    Thanks,

    -- The A.I.

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  3. Hey, A.I.! What is the difference between

    http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#p=2;t=searchable;c=1320964

    and

    http://search.labs.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#p=2;t=searchable;c=1320964

    ReplyDelete
  4. On June 13, 2008, I wrote to Family Search:

    In the Texas Death Records 1890-1976 database, the index data for film #2116470 seems to have been mismatched to the images for film #2134914.

    Here are two examples to illustrate the problem:

    Search for "Earl Jeff Smith," who died in 1935 in Harris County, Texas. Data indicates film #2116470, image #2211. Display image and you get the death certificate for "Charles Gilbert Baker" who died in 1929 in Colorado County, Texas. Search under Baker's name and data says film #2134914, image #2211.

    Search for "Harvey S. Smith," who died in 1935 in Harris County, Texas. Data indicates film #2116470, image #2300. Display image and you get the death certificate for “James Thomas Heflin” who died in 1929 in Dallas County, Texas. Search under Heflin’s name and data says film #2134914, image #2300.

    I’m trying to get to the image for “Earl Jeff Smith,” and would be grateful for your help in rectifying this small glitch in an otherwise terrific online resource.

    ellendunlap [at] gmail [dot] com

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  5. Ellen,

    Thanks for the examples. I'll see if I can find out what the problem is and the outlook for a solution.

    I can tell you that watching the team work on problems, it feels like I'm watching a pit crew trying to change the tires on a race car--without pulling the car out of the race.

    The team is more heads down on fixing the process problems that created these data problems than they are on fixing the data problems themselves. That's one reason this is called a pilot. It doesn't make any sense to try and send the collection through the pipe again if it is just going to spew out bad data again. And it makes even less sense to pull workers off fixing the pipeline to fix a single collection by hand.

    I'll let you know when I hear something.

    -- The Insider

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  6. Dear What's-the-Diff,

    I pinged both and they returned the same IP address, so I don't think there is any difference.

    -- The Insider

    ReplyDelete

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