Ten members joined Alan’s demonstration of FamilySearch’s new feature – Full Text Search.
The Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) has millions of microfilms in a vault in Granite Mountain, Utah, which are not indexed and published to provide easy access. Instead FamilySearch has employed ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) to scan those images and convert them to text.
Using the new feature I have been able, for example, to locate property deeds in Ireland, genealogies in the USA, burial register entries in Bishopwearmouth and wills in Cheshire, all accompanied by a copy of the original image, the AI transcribed version of the image (less than perfect!), an AI summary of the text and a citation reference. Filters on Year, Location and Record Type are usually necessary to reduce the number of results returned to manageable numbers. Wild cards (? and *) can be used though I have found them unreliable. The use of + and – immediately preceding a word in the search box can also focus the results.
Many records that the LDS have been given access to were made available subject to restrictions on access. These can only be viewed at FamilySearch centres such as at Newton Aycliffe or at Affiliate centres such as the Northumberland and Durham Family History Society in Newcastle. For convenience such records can be filtered out of the search results but they may contain a nugget of information that would may the trip worthwhile.
Record sets that are already indexed, eg parish records, census records etc, are NOT presented by Full Text Search. For these it is necessary to use the familiar search tools on FamilySearch.
I have found Full Text Search a valuable extension to the facilities available on FamilySearch but not a replacement for conventional directed search methods. For these come to next month’s talk!
Next month’s talk will be on Family History Basics: How to Search. The following month will be Family History Basics: Where to Look. They will both be followed by ‘Help your Neighbour’ practical sessions. September’s meeting will be at 13:30 on Thursday 10th of September at Enterprise House.
Alan Swindale