FamilySearch is indicating that it’s 1860 census has been “last updated” on 24 March 2017.
The question is “how?”
I realize that FamilySearch provides access to a vast quantity of information at no charge. I appreciate that. I just wish that I had some inkling of how this database has been updated? There’s several ways it could have been updated and it makes me wonder
- Have images been improved?
- Have missing images been included?
- Were there areas that were not originally included in the index?
- Has the index been “improved,” had alternate interpretations added, etc.?
What sort of update has been done determines whether I need search the database again or not. It is something I would like to know.
Ancestry.com is guilty of the same sin of omission. With Ancestry.com it is a bigger problem as I am paying for their service.
Is the 1860 census “new and improved” in a way that I need to perform all those searches for Benjamin Butler over again? Do I need to see if there were any 1860 enumerations that were difficult to read? I don’t know what I need to do if all I know is that a database has been updated.
4 Responses
My friend Marshall runs a comparison every week on the new and updated databases. Here is the one for the 1860 census:
United States Census, 1860 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1473181); 27,150,731 indexed records with 703,834 record images (was 27,150,234 records with 703,834 images), Updated 24 Mar 2017
So they took 3 index records out. Hardly deserves a line, I think.
Cheers — Randy
No it probably doesn’t 😉
according to your figures they added almost 500 indexed records. 731-234=497, not 3 🙂
I agree with your feelings about not knowing what was done. And I was going along with it……until today! Then I got to thinking about “what would/could I do if I were the ‘changer’ involved?” How much effort would it take to include a note saying something like, “Name misspelled as Jonez, now filed under Jones”. In fact it could be even shorter to say: “p236, JONEZ corrected to JONES.” Either of those could be filed under ‘page 236’, or even less work for them but still workable for the reader, a page with all the corrections for “Kendall County, Illinois” noted on it. Little space and little work would be required…and think of the silent blessings that researchers would send to the unknown indexer and/or the company. Much better p.r. — And a happier customer will be more likely to return. And less likely to be muttering bad thoughts.