Is FamilySearch no longer making US census record images available online?

Question

Has anyone else been receiving a message from FamilySearch in the last few days that some US census records are now only available from the FHL or at a FHC affiliate rather than online?  It seems to be a widespread issue (I have gotten this message accessing multiple different census years), although some images are still appearing.  I hope this is a temporary technical glitch and not a new policy!

Comments

Same for me, Scott. I was just thinking about posting here to ask. I wonder what's up?

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I'm getting that message for a couple of 1790 records I had just looked at a couple of days ago.  I really hope it's a glitch.

ETA:  Can anyone else see the image at this link?  https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9YY8-SF1H?i=21&cc=1803959&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AXHKT-K4G

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I get the message saying you have to be a Family History Center (FHC) or Affiliate Library.

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I get this pop up window message:

Images Available

To view these images do one of the following:

• Access the site at a family history center.
• Access the site at a FamilySearch affiliate library.

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The FamilySearch wiki entry for the US census now just says that FamilySearch has an index, not index and images, for censuses up through 1920.  https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/United_States_Census_Online_Genealogy_Records

This is going to put a serious crimp in my workflow.

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The page you linked to hasn't been updated since April 2019, so it doesn't have anything to do with what's happening now. https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=United_States_Census_Online_Genealogy_Records&action=history

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Ah, I didn't catch that.  Thanks!  Gives me hope that maybe this is still just a glitch.

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Has anyone explored the Image Search that was recently added to Family Search?  Wonder if Census images are accessible there, but can’t reach that right now to try (on phone access and away from desktop).

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I see the image.  No error message.

Answer 1

Something very similar happened in July 2017.  I contacted FS then and received this reply:

Thank you for contacting Family Search.  You expressed your concerns about the current visibility of the census records. We apologize for this issue.   It appears that just recently, there has been a change in the way the census records can be viewed.   The engineers are working on why this has happened.  We don’t know how long it would take. You can still access the census records at your local FHC, in the mean time. We appreciate your support of Family Search.

The situation was resolved quickly.  I suspect (hope) this is just a short term technical glitch.

Comments

In addition to archive.org, if you need free access to a census image right away, live in the U.S., and have a library card, there's a good chance that you can obtain the documents at home via MyHeritage Library Edition and HeritageQuest (powered by Ancestry). See those links for details.

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Links for subscription databases on library sites permit use by people with that particular library card.  Access will vary from library to library.  It is determined by the contract a library has/has not with the vendor.

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I just got off of a chat session with FamilySearch.  They are aware of the problem and collecting info for their technicians.  Apparently they're getting inundated with reports.  No ETA on resolution.  This was not an intentional change.

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That's a relief.  We'll just have to be patient, then.  I suppose this can serve as a reminder not to be too reliant on any one online site.

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Thanks for the info, Kerry! Hope they can get the problem resolved soon.

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I chatted again yesterday and the person at FS didn't really seem to know what I was referencing.  That was a bit concerning, so I chatted again today and was told they are still working on the problem with U.S. censuses.  I asked if it would help or hurt to have others submit tickets; she said that it wouldn't help because they are aware of the issue and working on it.  No estimate for resolution.

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To give an idea of how long resolution of this problem could take, this time last year there were major issues on FS when accessing restricted records. Instead of getting the message saying, for example, you had to go to a FHC, you got  a message saying that the records were "not available at this time". If you refreshed multiple times (often 10+), you sometimes got the correct message, but most people didn't know that.

This obviously confused many people and caused them to believe that those records were not accessible at all online. Despite the magnitude of the problem, it took several months to fix.

Answer 2

I've gotten the FHL message, as well as "permission denied" messages from links for similar documents. It seems that 1860 and 1870 are affected--the searches I do for those years all turn up zero results. As you said, hopefully this is a temporary glitch.

Comments

For the "permission denied" messages, I have found that if you directly click the link (instead of right click- open in new tab), it will take you to the source.  This has worked for FindAGrave links for me.

Answer 3

I'm getting it with 1920, but images available for same individual in some other years ... dang, 1880 available a day or two ago, today I get the "available at FHL message."

Answer 4

I've gotten it on a few records also but ... it will put a crimp in documentation if this is the new policy for folk like me who rely on familysearch online and could not trek physically to a facility ... there may be alternative sites online and that will have to be explored

Comments

Susan, this is, indeed, an inconveniencing situation. I'm hoping it is temporary. Fortunately, I have an Ancestry.com subscription so I can find and view census records there, and I can still provide a "sharing" link to the image on the profiles I manage so others may examine the record as well.

Answer 5

I am wondering if it is something to do with individual towns, perhaps they are reorganizing them?

If I go to the mainpage at the 1870 US Census:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1438024

I can browse through all of the Illinois counties:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/image/index?owc=92VF-J4S%3A518684301%3Fcc%3D1438024

 but I can't find Casey in Clark County, at all -- and that is where my ancestors were living at that time. Example: this should be the Thomas Franklin Shute https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Shute-341 household:

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M64N-CK5

It would be nice if FamilySearch made some kind of statement if they were removing or reorganizing their pages.

Answer 6

apparently the use policy is undergoing change

I got this link recently in my email

http://www.familysearch.org/legal/terms

and

http://permissions.churchofjesuschrist.org/

which requires you to have  a church account

Comments

You will need to register for a Church Account to check for or request license permissions, even if you are not a Church member. Registration information will only be used in relation to your permissions request. Contact information from your Church Account registration will be used to initiate a licensing request.

The approximate time frame for receiving a reply to a request is 45 days.

this is what it says when you ask for permission

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For further assistance or information regarding the use of Church materials, you may contact the Church’s Intellectual Property Office at:

 

Attention: Permissions

 

Intellectual Property Office

 

50 East North Temple Street

 

Salt Lake City, Utah 84150-0005

Phone:

801-240-3959 or

 

1-800-453-3860, ext. 2-3959

Fax:

801-240-1187

Email:

permissions@ChurchofJesusChrist.org

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images for all 1790-1930 at

http://archive.org/details/us_census

there's a little search bar top right corner after you select state and year

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images also at

http://www.findmypast.com/articles/world-records/full-list-of-united-states-records/census-land-and-substitutes

need to sign up for free account first

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Thank you very much Eddie, archive.org is perfect when you already know the area where your ancestor lived.

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Hi Miss Dina

everybody knows if you send me a request for help, I have Ancestry and can download images and send you in email attachments

just private message me

I work on wikitree a couple hours every day

always available to friends

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Eddie, Dina, how do you search that mess at archive.org?  I can narrow the census field down to a year and a state, no problem, and I can scroll over the titles of each reel of microfilm to see what county is included on that reel.  As a test, I tried to look for an ancestor in Maryland in 1870, but couldn't find a way to zero in any further.  I tried to search within a reel for a surname or a town, but all I get is "Sorry, there was an error with your search."  It doesn't look like any indexing has been done, so where do you go next?  What am I missing?

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Eddie, I opened a free account at Find my past as well but I will not be doing much there. I searched for records for a person I have on WikiTree with 4 sources and could not find anything on FMP. Their search engine is a bad joke.

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hi Dennis and Dale

I never used familysearch very much

I use Ancestry Library Edition. It's free

Send me a personal message and I can loan you my link when you have trouble

meantime, BEHAVE !

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FINDMYPAST has online help site where you can email questions

http://v2.zopim.com/widget/livechat.html?key=3DotIr0sLr60FCHZRsr7maiAjK0KmozD

Answer 7

All records on FS are present only with the permission of the record "custodians", which means the owner (in this case the US National Archives), as well as other parties with rights to the records such as Ancestry.com, MyHeritage, FindMyPast etc

For these records, access has now been restricted to only those at a Family History Center (FHC- not the FHL) or an Affiliate Library. 

What I personally think has happened, is that as part of the partnerships that FamilySearch has with most of all the major genealogical sites, access to these records has been restricted in order to benefit their partners- so that people have to pay their fees. Any contract between the Archives and FS or another genealogical organisation has to be made public under the Freedom of Information Act, but if the Archives makes a contract with Ancestry, FMP etc, who then make a contract with FS that says they can publish the federal census records on their terms, we can't find out what is happening. FS never publicly comments on why records are restricted, in order to build trust with their partners. 

It's worth noting that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS, Mormon) sometimes have better access to records than the general population. Until October 2019 the pop-up which told you where/how you could view restricted records would state this, but this no longer happens. Sometimes you see the message "You may be able to view this image by visiting one of our partners' sites or the legal record custodian (fees may apply)"- that is a discrete way of saying that LDS members have access to the records. But the absence of the message does not mean that LDS cannot view the records. 

I also suggest participating in the FamilySearch forum: https://getsatisfaction.com/familysearch. Issues around access to records are frequently discussed there, and several regular users and staff members are knowledgeable about these things. 

Comments

Here's the contract between the US National Archives (NARA) and FamilySearch: https://www.archives.gov/files/digitization/pdf/family-search-agreement.pdf 

Paragraphs 1.6 and 1.7 seem to say that FamilySearch will make the records available online. Paragraphs 1.11 and 1.12 say that FamilySearch must make the records freely available at NARA locations and that NARA owns the records, except when a third party says otherwise. These "third parties" are likely to be commercial companies like Ancestry, FMP and MyHeritage that FS has partnerships with. 

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I think perhaps we should upload all US Census images to Wikitree under the appropriate categories. If we add transcriptions of each image to each image page, perhaps we can create our own searchable database for all US Census records that should be freely accessible publicly. Is this not the purpose and intent of Wikitree?

I think a beginning has already been started for this project by Charlie Vines[[Vines-20]]:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:United_States_Census_Transcription_Projec

If we can integrate Charlie's efforts with the United States Census categorization project, I would personally love to help work on the image transcriptions and linking/creating wikitree profiles to those census images.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:United_States_Census_Records
 

We should be able to easily enough add a copyable reference to each census listing that can be added to our profiles as an inline citation for each image.

Answer 8

This will mean if I link to an image, I will link to MyHeritage. Ok, not the best solution, but it is a solution.

Answer 9

Familysearch have also stopped linking to most of the UK censuses at Findmypast too, the exceptions being 1901 and 1911. I have a Findmypast account and thought it brilliant that i could use Familysearch and link directly to stuff I had paid for at Findmypast.

Sadly, Familysearch have in recent months made a raft of changes to their search engine, and removed these links. These two actions now mean Familysearch is not my preferred search engine anymore and I use my Ancestry sub and Findmypast more and more.

Comments

Yes, I agree - FamilySearch is rapidly becoming quite useless for UK census information.

I am lucky in that a good chunk of my family history is in Cornwall, where all the 19th-century censuses are online and free, thanks to the Cornwall Online Census Project. I can't afford to subscribe to another site, but the changes at FamilySearch have convinced me to volunteer at FreeCen, at least.

Answer 10

I've had occasional outages where the images weren't available, but it's always cleared itself up. I just checked and the images are available now, so I can only guess that the OP had a brief issue that went away.

Answer 11

I just checked several links in profiles I manage. The record for the census shows up but not the image. I hope this does not eventually mean that we will need to change all those links to another venue that will work!!

Answer 12

The indexed information is still available but to view the actual image you need to spend more time and effort. I may be wrong but this could be a result of too many people copying images to other sites, like WikiTree, when that is forbidden by familysearch in their terms of use.

Answer 13

I have been getting the Permission Denied message for anything about the record on some, but not all, 1940 US census and World War II Draft Registration. That is when following suggested related records from other results, and they can't be found via search.

Answer 14

Yes, a few still have images but the majority do not.  Additionally, nearly all (maybe all) 1870 record do show up in a search.  I can verify they are still there by executing an 1870 census link in profile, but when I try to find the same record with a new search it fails to locate the known record.

Answer 15

Hello Scott:

Yes, definitely. It suddenly started about five days ago or so. It seems to be affecting all United Sates Federal Census records regardless of which State and what decade. I have done quite a number of random searches on any state and any decade and nothing is available. They are all blocked.

So far, the individual state census records seem to be unaffected. I have sent them a message, but no reply yet. This is a tough blow to my research. I am following all Labossiere families forward to about 1940 or so and often the census records are all I have to confirm marriages and children.

Jim LaBossiere

Comments

Apparently this is a mistake and was not intended- it has happened before. Hopefully FS will restore access as soon as possible.

Answer 16

Hello Scott,

Yes, clearly, you are not alone with this issue.  I noticed it last Friday evening when the 1810 NY Census, Rensselaer County, was suddenly restricted.  I immediately contacted FamilySearch help & contacted them again yesterday & I still have NOT heard from them.  Now all the federal censuses are restricted.

Here's where my corporate cynicism has taken me:  Ancestry is having financial issues, as are the other testing companies, for a variety reasons (covered elsewhere), & perhaps, in an attempt to scrounge up business, they have contacted FamilySeach & asked/told them to restrict access of the censuses.  It could also just be a test to see if Ancestry gets more traffic from the restrictions.  Either way this hurts us.

I find it VERY hard to believe that FamilySearch computer specialists have not figured out what the issues are & repaired them.  We are at just about a week when these issues arose with no resolution?  That's suspicious.

If this is a new policy with FamilySearch, then my working on their Family Tree is done.  It's already difficult to try to keep profiles there clean because anyone can come in & make changes without any consequences, but to not be able to use the censuses as a guide or clue would mean too much guessing & ambiguity, & the profiles would become more of a mess.

What are our options?  Contact our representatives?  Some one should let the "Legal Genealogist", Judy Russell, know what appears to be happening here & get her take on this issue. (Did I..... just volunteer?)  Has anyone contacted the US Archives & gotten their perspective? (Again.... what have I done?)

I've used the censuses on Archive.org & they are some help, but many pages are quite dim & some are impossible to read.  It seems outrageous that public records can be used for corporate profits.  I'm even bothered that the Mormons can access ALL the records without restrictions simply by having church account, while the rest of us have to travel (in my case, an hour to a public library- read: homeless shelter- with half hour limits on computers) to various libraries to get access.

All for now.

Nace

Comments

For nearly two years I have believed that it is not right that many records on FS can be viewed from any computer by Latter Day Saints (aka Mormons, LDS), but only at FHCs or Affiliate Libraries by others. It is even worse that since October non-LDS are no longer told about LDS getting more access to records. For example if records can be viewed at a FHC by non-LDS and anywhere by LDS, non-LDS are only told that they have to visit a FHC if they want to view the records.

FS may have a valid point that they are supported by the Mormon Church, but all these restrictions were approved/demanded by their owners, who are often governments. In the United States there would be 1st Amendment concerns- the Establishment Clause limits/prohibits governments from favouring one religion(s) over other religions/non-religions.

But it would be very difficult to get them to stop. I've contacted around 6 different record custodians, including 3 government bodies in the UK, and have taken steps such as complaining to Ombudsmans and Ministers But I very little to show for it.

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I'm just taking this all in stride and using the down time to migrate some profiles from FS to WT.

Answer 17

I was going to ask the same question, but you beat me to it .

The FamilySearch will give you a good citation, including state, county, town, ED, page #, etc. But at the moment there seems to be no way to access the images on FS.

I happen to have a "pay-to-play" Ancestry.com account, and can access the images from there. Easily done with the information from the FS citation to quickly go to the correct page.

I don't have the other pay-accounts like MyHeritage and what-have-you, but I suspect the same thing would apply.

And, as others have said, most local libraries have set up Ancestry Library Accounts, which card-holders can access for free.

Could be worse, people. Remember the old days when digital access was just a pipe dream, and we had to sit and ruin our eyes and our backs as we hunched over, peering bleary-eyed, as we scrolled through roll after roll of microfilm? I do remember those days. Not fondly.

Johnson out.

Answer 18

Perhaps this has something to do with it: message on FamilySearch.org as of 10:40 PM EDT March 13:\

"Some features on FamilySearch may be unavailable as we make improvements to the site starting Friday, March 13th at 7:00 pm (UTC-05:00) and lasting about 60 hours. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Answer 19

They just posted a message saying this is a problem that they hope to have resolved soon.  As usual with Family Search glitches, wait a few days, and maybe it will work again.

Comments

Where? I couldn't see it on their blog or facebook page.

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I saw it when conducting a search.  (It was a banner announcement at the top of the page.)

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That banner is quite common. Every few weeks FS has periods lasting a few hours during which the website is online, but some features do not work.

A 60 hour period is remarkably long for this, but there is no indication this has anything to do with changing access restrictions to US federal censuses- which could be achieved without partially closing the website. In fact, every day, FS probably changes access rules to thousands or even millons of records.

This probably is website maintenance. Personally I've noticed quite a few issues with the FS site over the last few weeks, so they may be fixing those.

On the FS customer forum, someone has already asked about why this is taking 60 hours, and I will reply for the benefit of the WikiTree community if FS replies.

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I'm not talking about the 60-hour maintenance, but the one that was there regards the US census images.  Maybe fixing those is why the 60 hours.

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Yes, it seems to be working again. I first noticed late last night that the census images seem to be accessible again, though still a bit glitchy.  I think FamilySearch is in the process of fixing this.  

Thanks to everyone for their answers - especially the link to the Internet Archive census records at archive.org.  Those are a bit clunky to use, but at least it's good to know there is a free fallback access to the images in the worst case.

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I saw both banners displayed on the same page last night.

Answer 20

They seem to be back this morning but I'm getting weird search results -- "no results" when I know for certain that a family is in there.

Comments

Hi Jillaine, thanks, I am having better luck this morning since I checked, but I got the below message. 

Some features on FamilySearch may be unavailable as we make improvements to the site starting Friday, March 13th at 8:00 pm (UTC-04:00) and lasting about 60 hours. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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Jillaine, I've been getting that for weeks now.  I'm trying to update my old profiles, and searching to see if I can find anything new.  I get "no results" or irrelevant results, but when I click on the Family Search links I added to the profile several years ago, they still work fine.  But a new search, using search parameters that should find those same old records, produces nothing.  It appears there is something screwed up in their search engine, in addition to whatever other problems they're having.