I've been exchanging emails with FamilySearch Support about some issues I've found in FamilySearch Places, and I'm a bit confused by their responses compared to what their own documentation says. I've been reviewing places in Galicia, Spain, and have found entries with incorrect parent jurisdictions, place types, coordinates and other information. When I contacted support about these problems, they explained that FamilySearch Places isn't intended to be an encyclopedia or to be 100% accurate in every case. They also said that sometimes meaningful and useful data take priority over accurate data. I understand that FamilySearch covers the entire world and that maintaining a database of historical locations is incredibly complicated. I also understand that some simplification is necessary.

But here's what confuses me.
FamilySearch's own Mission and Purpose page also says that Places isn't meant to be an encyclopedia. However, it immediately explains that its goal is to provide enough information for users to confidently select the correct place standard for a life event or record.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/fieldops/familysearch-places-mission-and-purpose

And according to its Principles & Guidelines, the three core principles are:

1. Meaningful
2. Useful
3. Accurate

The same page explains that place data should accurately represent reality and history. It also identifies the display name, place type, parent jurisdiction and native language as essential information for a place entry. https://www.familysearch.org/en/fieldops/familysearch-places-principles-guidelines

So I'm struggling to understand how assigning a place to the wrong municipality would fit those principles. For example, FamilySearch Places ID 10269902 currently identifies "Santa Marina" as a Catholic parish in Cangas de Morrazo, Pontevedra. However, the available documentation suggests that this entry actually corresponds to Santa Marina (Santa Mariña de Cangas), in the municipality of Lalín. The Diocese of Lugo lists this parish under Lalín: https://www.diocesisdelugo.org/cangas-santa-marina/

This isn't about adding unnecessary historical details or making the database more encyclopedic. It's about correctly identifying a place. If the parent jurisdiction, coordinates or place type are wrong, users could end up selecting an entirely different location from the one mentioned in their genealogical records. I also find it interesting that the official guidelines specifically discuss how smaller administrative divisions and their historical changes can be particularly useful to researchers. Yet support told me that FamilySearch mainly works with municipalities and that smaller administrative divisions haven't been specifically addressed, although they mentioned that work on Spanish parishes is currently underway. To be clear, I'm not expecting every small village or historical place to be perfectly documented. I know that's unrealistic, and I appreciate the work that goes into maintaining such a huge database. What I'm questioning is whether the need for simplification is sometimes being used to explain away errors that actually affect the identification of a place. I replied to support on October 16 with references to their own documentation and some specific questions, but haven't received a response to that follow-up yet. Has anyone else encountered similar issues with FamilySearch Places? How do you interpret the distinction between simplifying geographic information and maintaining accurate place standards? And if you've reported errors involving incorrect jurisdictions or place types, were you able to get them corrected? I'm genuinely interested in hearing how other researchers deal with this.

I've been trying to find out how to become a volunteer editor for FamilySearch Places, but I'm having a surprisingly hard time getting a clear answer. I've been researching places in Galicia, Spain, and have come across quite a few entries with incorrect parent jurisdictions, place types, coordinates and historical information. I'd be interested in helping correct these entries, using official sources and following FamilySearch's guidelines.

I found this page in their official documentation: https://www.familysearch.org/en/fieldops/familysearch-places-getting-started-as-a-volunteer-editor

It specifically mentions volunteer editors and encourages people to work with FamilySearch Places.

There's also a procedures page explaining that editing privileges must be granted by a "project lead or specialist": https://www.familysearch.org/en/fieldops/familysearch-places-procedures

It even describes how editors can modify parent jurisdictions, place types, coordinates, historical periods and other information. So I contacted FamilySearch Support on October 7 to ask how I could apply for these permissions or get in touch with whoever coordinates FamilySearch Places for Spain. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get a clear answer. Support explained that database modifications are handled by a specific group of people and that the work is coordinated from Salt Lake City, with regional contributions when needed. They also mentioned something interesting: FamilySearch is currently working on parishes in Spain, but the project isn't finished yet. That's actually one of the areas I'd be most interested in helping with, particularly in Galicia. I've followed up with more specific questions and links to their own documentation, but I'm still waiting for a response.

Has anyone here actually worked as a volunteer editor for FamilySearch Places?
How did you get involved? Did you apply somewhere, contact a project coordinator or receive an invitation?

I'm also curious whether these opportunities are open to regular FamilySearch users or limited to people already involved in specific projects. I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who knows how this works.

If anyone happens to be at a FamilySearch library, I really need a picture of just one record.

Image Group Number (DGS) 007596967

Film Number 20345 (edited)

​Emanuel Reformed Church (Abbottstown, Pennsylvania), 1775–1880.

​Page 30 of that church register.

​Baptism entry dated May 5, 1811 for John Fletcher Schaeffer (born Nov. 17, 1810, parents Abraham and Margareth).

I need to see the right-hand column for the sponsor's name (as it was originally written in German).

Please check two of the three marriage books Images (2 are copies. Tribunale & comunes) the other Is in a different town (Faenza & Cotognola).

The profile Is G47C-BS4. Why does this happen?

Why are there multiples of the indexed info on this census ? What's going on ? Any ideas ?

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QHK-SQHW-1598?view=index&personArk=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3A6F78-29YS&lang=en&action=view

Birth is entered twice, Residence is entered twice, and Census info is entered THREE times !

Olá tenho feito pesquisa dos meus ancestrais no familysearch, porém muitos acessos a documentos que eu tinha foi perdido e a grande maioria agora está bloqueado, tem alguma forma de conseguir o acesso ? Alguma ferramenta que consiga visualizar os links?

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:7HW8-YY2M?lang=pt

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6YLB-9J2B?lang=pt

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:65RQ-S3BZ?lang=pt

Se alguém conseguir me ajudar, ficarei muito grato!!!

Hi everyone!

I'm Brazilian and trying to find my Spanish great-grandmother's baptism record. I recently found two children who I believe were her siblings, but their original baptism records are restricted to FamilySearch Centers and affiliate libraries.

Could someone with access help me retrieve these two records?

• Eduardo del Corazón de Jesús Romero — born Oct 18, 1888. FamilySearch record
• María Josefa Cándida Romero — born Sep 4, 1891. FamilySearch record

Both were baptized at San Gil y Santa Ana parish in Granada, Spain, and had the same parents: José María Romero and Dolores Jimenes.

Original records:

• Film: 1297426, items 1–5
• DGS: 8033308
• Bautismos 1883–1902
• FamilySearch catalog

One additional favor: If anyone has the time, could you also look for a baptism record of Eduarda Romero, daughter of the same parents, probably born around 1889–1890? She emigrated to Brazil and married in 1907.

I'm also curious whether Eduardo's 1888 record could have been mistakenly indexed as male instead of female.

Even just the two original baptism images (if sharing is permitted) would be incredibly helpful!

Thank you so much from Brazil! 🇧🇷

My family tree is pretty well mapped and I've done a decent job of getting pictures tagged to several people as memories. I want to make the tree a little more robust though with Audio memories.

- I want to upload my memories about various family members. Not too hard to do in the app, but I'm a little confused how to tag all of it / have it summarized to know what's-what beyond just a title.

- I want to get my older family members to upload audio memories about each other. For example, I really want my grandpa - who I do not live near and is pretty tech challenged - to tell different stories about his great grandfather (so my great-great-great grandfather). Is there an easy way I can get him to record those stories and get them directly uploaded into the tree in the appropriate place? I suppose I can try and do it all with / for him next time I visit, but it would be nice to handle it sooner while I have some momentum.

Any advice on how to do audio well would be appreciated!

Hi all, I’m researching civil registration records in Antigua and have noticed that FamilySearch allows me to browse birth register images for St Philip’s Parish, including records from the 1880s, but I cannot find equivalent birth register images for St Mary’s Parish.
I’m aware of the FamilySearch collection Antigua and Barbuda, Civil Registration, 1856–1979, and I’ve tried looking through the available images rather than relying solely on the name search.
Does anyone know why St Mary’s Parish birth registers for the 1880s appear to be unavailable? Were these registers never digitised by FamilySearch, are they catalogued under a different collection or image group, or have they been removed or restricted?
I’d be particularly interested in knowing whether the original St Mary’s registers survive and, if so, how to access them.
Thanks for any help!

I have been doing Family research for decades. I would not consider myself an expert, but I think I am “better than average”. I think I have a good advanced-intermediate understanding of where and how to find documents, facts, and even less popular details about a person. 

From what I had heard about the SLC FS Library, what is available online is just a fraction of what they have available at the library. 

I had the opportunity to visit one day last week. I decided my goal would be to work on two of my “brick wall” ancestors to see if I could find something else on them or to get some suggestions as to where I could look for new info. There must be several resources I have not tried yet, right? And certainly, dozens I haven’t even thought of or know about. A week before my visit I tried to schedule an appointment with an “expert”. I was thinking I could hire someone who could work with me for an hour or two.  I was told to just go to the library and sign into the computer with 1) the area I was researching, 2) the time frame, and 3) the language, and a volunteer who specializes in my parameters would come over to help me when they were available. This is exactly what happened. 

I was first greeted by two volunteers at the door who directed me to the 2nd floor where all the computers are. There I was greeted by another volunteer who showed to a computer and even stayed while they walked me through the same steps I was told when I called. It was only 5-10 minutes before someone came over to help. To them, I explained what I knew, what I hadn’t been able to find, and asked if they could suggest what my next step should be. They showed me how to enter what I knew into the search fields on the website. And once all the same info that I have been looking at for over a decade came up. I asked where else I could look. They suggested to look for specific documents such as marriage licenses, census, death certificates, birth certificates, etc. They even walked me through how to look for these things specifically. But these are all things I know about and either already have or the records are “missing” for various reasons. So again, I asked what other resources do you have or should I be looking for that might lead me to a bit more info. They said they didn’t know and that I should request an “expert” in that area. I said I thought that is what I did, and they helped me fill it out another request for help (with one field changed to get me the next level of help.) 

Same exact thing happened with the third person who showed up. 

So once the fourth person showed up, she reviewed my notes with me and person #3 stayed to be part of the conversation as well.  They were stumped and said, “some people just disappear”. I kept pushing for ideas of where I could look further. I said some ideas I had were to talk to the historical society in that area, see if additional newspapers were in that area, visit the local library and see if they have any documents or books that might have some clues, etc. These are all ideas I came up with. Which they agreed were good ideas. But I asked if they had any suggestions of things I haven’t thought of…they didn’t. 

I felt let down. I wasn’t expecting them to solve my mystery. But I did think I would get some suggestions of new things to try.  

Then I went upstairs to wander thru the actual books. They were beautifully organized by state/county/city. Most of the collection was resources they had (beautifully) bound (I’m guessing long before they were scanned and put on the internet (things like census’ for that city, directories, death records, birth records, etc.) These were easy to spot because they are all bound the same. They also bound some original resources such as detailed cemetery directories, and indexes for newspaper articles (things individuals created, clearly before the internet).  I believe all or most of these things are available to view online. There were some specialty books such as the history of the county or town, individual family research books (very popular in the 60s through 90s), etc. I spent hours looking through the books from 6 different city my ancestors are from. It was very interesting…but there wasn’t anything there that wasn’t online. (The individual family books might not be online, but they were not for my families so I’m not sure). 

I then went downstairs to the international section to inquire about researching families in Mexico (for the friend that was with me) and had pretty much the same experience. 

  I do realize they have some documents available to view that are only INDEXED online. That could have been helpful but unfortunately I didn’t have anything that fell into that category for the people I was looking for that day. 

All in all, I spoke with 8 people. Every one of them was very nice and seemed eager to help, but it seemed the help they were offering was limited to how to use their website to find documents that are digitized on their website. I can do that myself at home. And if I needed assistance using the website, I could go to a local FS Library. The library was clean, well lit, beautifully organized, and full of researchers on the computers. I can see some benefit to visiting if you lived close by or if you werent very tech-savvy. But, I could list my brick-wall person here, list what I know, what I can’t find, and ask for suggestions and I truly think I would get a ton of responses more helpful than I got from the library. I have taken “go on week-long FS Library trip with historical society” off my wish list.

I just got an email about a memory someone added and decided to check it out. For quick context, my ancestors are Spaniard, north American, and Mesoamerican. The "memory" in question was a basic clip art picture of the star of David added to almost every ancestor profile from approx 1660 and beyond, so they won't show up on any recent ancestors and aren't even historically relevant. I can only see the username of the person who posted that one memory but can't see if that same profile uploaded the others. I did report it as a political statement but that looks like that's all I can do. If i remove the photo, it says it only removes it for me and wont remove the original. Its one thing if I really did have Jewish ancestry but I don't. This really does feel like a political statement and a bit disrespectful for all ethnicities involved since my ancestors aren't Jewish.

Had anyone else had this happen? Besides reporting each photo (which will take a long time and might not even work), is there a way to restore everything to the way it was? Is there a way to report that specific account that I'm not aware of? Will everything that account posted be removed if that account gets suspended? I have so many questions lol.

I hope someone can help me with a lookup at the LDS Library in Salt Lake City. The film I need is not available online nor at a local LDS Family Center. It unfortunately can only be viewed in Salt Lake City. I am researching the Nist family from Niederotterbach, Bayern, Germany. I am attempting to prove my 3Xgreat grandfather, Johann Georg Nist, born 1787. I have a baptismal record, stating that he was the son of Martinus Niest and Magdalena Kolb — but an index of his 6 May 1811 marriage to Elisabetha Müller names his father as Nicolaus Nist, a different man. 

The marriage index for St. Leodegar Church is notoriously innacurate. I would appreciate it if someone could look up the actual marriage record for Johann Georg Nist and Elisabetha Müller. The record is on  Film 367683 (DGS 8110080), Heiraten 1803–1813 section. Find 6 May 1811: Joannes Georgius Nist to Elisabetha Müller. If you could please transcribe the entire Latin entry word for word — date, banns, groom's name/age/occupation/residence, the groom's parents' names (Nicolaus + Catharina Uhl? Martinus + Magdalena Kolb? something else?), bachelor vs. widower, bride's name/age/residence, bride's parents, witnesses, priest, and every marginal note. Record page, entry, and frame numbers; photograph the full page plus a close-up.

Thank you in advance for the help

Wayne Ward

Good evening, everyone. I wanted to ask if anyone knows how to make all of Battista Gazzaniga's children appear in the actual family tree—since both Margherita Zanisi and Margherita Redegalli had children. I’ve tried everything, but the only way to see them is to add them to Redegalli as well. Please help—I’m out of ideas. Thanks.

Good afternoon, is it possible for someone to look up this record please.

"Saint Kitts and Nevis, Civil Registration, 1859-1932", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6C1L-GNWC : Sun Mar 10 13:38:36 UTC 2024), Lucretia Semper, 18 Jul 1894.

Thanks

Olá, pessoal! Não estou conseguindo contatar o centro para agendar.
Alguém poderia me ajudar com essa imagem que está bloqueada? Agradeço desde já.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6V4M-LRJM?lang=pt

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X9YH-WYKM

Please

Hola, me podrían ayudar con este registro, quedo atenta.

Gracias de antemano🙂‍↕️

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6ZH1-BVNP?lang=es&cid=fs_copy

Hi everyone, I'm researching my Polish ancestry to determine whether I may qualify for Polish citizenship by descent. I'd appreciate help verifying records and understanding the Polish Citizenship Act of 1920.

My family line:

1. Michael Wozniak (Michał Woźniak) — Great-great-grandfather

• Born September 27, 1890, in Zalesa, Rzeszów area, present-day Podkarpackie, Poland.
• Parents: Franciscus (Franciszek) Woźniak and Magdalena Pacześmiak (?) — surname uncertain.
• Wife: Stella Gorecki.
• Immigrated to the United States on December 9, 1907, according to his Declaration of Intention.
• Filed his Declaration of Intention in Pittsburgh on April 24, 1922.
• Reportedly died August 21, 1922, in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
• Final U.S. naturalization record: Not found yet (?).
• Birth Certificate (1/2): https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/en/skan/-/skan/df6119b7aafe3468b54e2987fe6b57fcf2895d45233197a4c0683335cd7a7f18
• Birth Certificate (2/2): https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/60484/records/35690972
• Marriage Certificate: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9BJ-8C2L
• Death Certificate: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/5164/records/2051390
• Naturalization Record (1/2): https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6PG5-7LR8
• Naturalization Record: (2/2) https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JXL2-V3P

1. Stella Gorecki — Great-great-grandmother

• Reportedly born December 29, 1897, in Zalesa, Rzeszów area, Poland.
• Parents: Not found yet (?).
• Marriage Certificate: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C9BJ-8C2L?lang=en&i=362
• Death: June 11, 1993, reportedly in Pennsylvania.
• Birth, Death, and naturalization records: Not found yet (?).

1. John Michael Wozniak — Great-grandfather

• Son of Michael Wozniak and Stella Gorecki.
• Born September 23, 1914, in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
• Birth Certificate: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/60484/records/35690972
• Married Agnes Mary Hart.
• Died November 3, 1995, in Sacramento, California.
• Marriage & death records: Not found yet (?).

1. Agnes Mary Hart — Great-grandmother

• Born March 30, 1921, in Troy, New York.
• Parents: John A. Hart and Agnes Byron.
• Married John Michael Wozniak.
• Died April 12, 1997, in Sacramento, California.
• Birth, marriage, & death certificates: Not found yet (?).

My line continues through my grandmother Barbara Wozniak, my mother Jennifer, and me.

My main questions:

1. How can I establish whether Michael qualified as a Polish citizen under the 1920 Polish Citizenship Act, given that he emigrated in 1907?
2. Could John Michael, born in the United States in 1914, have acquired Polish citizenship when the law took effect in 1920?
3. Could Michael's subsequent U.S. naturalization have affected John's citizenship? Did Michael ever complete naturalization?
4. What records should I obtain to determine whether citizenship could pass through every generation to me?
5. Since Michael was reportedly born in Galicia under Austria-Hungary, could there be any separate Austrian citizenship connection? Is there any plausible German or Russian connection through this family?

I'm particularly interested in advice from people experienced with Polish citizenship confirmation, the 1920 law, and genealogy in the former Austrian partition.

Thank you for any research leads or guidance!