50 millions records are now unsearchable.
This is getting worse by the day, old or new search, take your pick.
I spent 15 mins trying to figure out what some Ancestry genius thought "St-Mathias" was; a location or place of worship. (it's a place of worship), and technically located in Pointe-Olivier. Nope, to Ancestry, "St-Mathias" is a location.
Whomever is tinkering around with these db's needs to study this guide to understand what is a parish and a location.
http://search.ancestry.com/iexec/?htx=BookList&dbid=4917...I performed and exact (new) search for a common name, Richer, I know to be in this parish, wildcarding it, a 20 year span, and got one return. There should be 50+ returns.
I've tossed in a couple of examples of geographically challenged, error ridden indexing.
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I'm including a page of old search results that make the point the indexing changes are horrendous. 2 out of 10 returns are indexed correctly. I did this search on 4 Jun 2012, and was unable to get the same return today using the same parameters today. I'm guessing Drouin and old search are no more? I can't wait for tomorrow.
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-I'm getting member connect alerts of alternate names to records in this collection I've made alternates to. In all cases, the new alternate is identical to mine. When I go to the page and look at my alternate, it's either garbled or incomplete.
-There's a new format for entering alternates, again not an improvement. I want to know why someone is making an alternate, the pre and suffix are not needed in FC genealogy. It's now set up to create a bunch of clutter on every record. I will no longer waste time making alternates that transcribers couldn't read in the first place.
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I posted on the Ancestry Improvement board about how the collection is now attaching to event in a profile in a member tree.
You'll have to make this uniform and consistent. If the system insists on not attaching a bap record to a birth event, but creates a bap event, then MAKE THE SEARCH FORM read BAPTISM, not BIRTH.
Conversely, the burial record attaches to the death event, but again, the search form reads that it's a search for a death record.
As it stands, I can search faster by hand, which can be done for free on familysearch.org. I'm paying for service that no longer works, and spending time pointing out why it doesn't.
I don't want to contacted by Ancestry via email, particularly one that is not familiar with the phrase, "drill-down". I've posted a link to this message on the Quebec-mail list, hoping the more experienced researchers join in my plight to get some resolution.