Fold3 Changes

[bdtex]

Apparently changes were made in the search functions within the last week that subscribers got no notice of. It used to be simple. Click on US Civil War(Confederacy) or US Civil War(Union), type in the soldier's name last name first and click on the search icon. If you got any hits, you could narrow the search from a menu of options above the list of hits. Apparently, fold3 decided to change that. After 2 days of playing around with it, I'm still trying to figure out how to start a simple name search for a Confederate or Union soldier. Yesterday, I thought maybe it was just changed for the mobile site. Nope, it's desktop too.

 

[lupaglupa]

I chose the Civil War, then narrow it by state, then do a name search. That usually works and has been the last few days. I was having issues with it about two weeks ago (maybe during the implementation of the changes?) but it has been fine the last week.

 

[bdtex]

I chose the Civil War, then narrow it by state, then do a name search. That usually works and has been the last few days. I was having issues with it about two weeks ago (maybe during the implementation of the changes?) but it has been fine the last week.

Obviously, because of where I live, most of my searches are for Confederate soldiers. It used to be a simple 2 stop process to do the name search, then a 3rd step to narrow it down by state. Maybe it's just the sequencing that has changed. Unless, I can get it back down to a simple 3 step process, I won't be able to say that the change is helpful.

 

[Kyle Kalasnik]

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[bayouace]

Like dealing with cable tv.

 

[Kyle Kalasnik]

Like dealing with cable tv.

Yessum, just can't leave well enough alone.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

 

[Lampasas Bill]

I can't think of more problematic words than "new and improved."

 

[bdtex]

If it's just me, then somebody lemme know. If you find the secret to simplifying fold3 searches again, lemme know that too. I'm curious to know if others are seeing what I'm seeing. What worked fine a week or so ago, doesn't work now.

 

[donna]

I will have to try today. Been doing Ancestry lately and all okay.

 

[DixieRifles]

My method was to open it to Civil War / Confederate / Service Records. I had that URL trained in my browser.
Then I would select a State and enter a soldier's name. If no hits, I backed up and entered a new name or version of it and search again.

But Now, this 2d search seems to keep that 1st name and the 2d one.

It doesnt hurt to attempt to contact someone. I used to have a contact for a real person. I complained how their regiments numbers—written in text— were not in numerical order. Someone emailed me that the problem was being worked on.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

Apparently changes were made in the search functions within the last week that subscribers got no notice of. It used to be simple. Click on US Civil War(Confederacy) or US Civil War(Union), type in the soldier's name last name first and click on the search icon. If you got any hits, you could narrow the search from a menu of options above the list of hits. Apparently, fold3 decided to change that. After 2 days of playing around with it, I'm still trying to figure out how to start a simple name search for a Confederate or Union soldier. Yesterday, I thought maybe it was just changed for the mobile site. Nope, it's desktop too.

Thanks for the alert !

This is typical for that site.
When I first subscribed, it was very easy to search any Union or Confederate soldier/sailor/marine.

Over the years, fold3 seemed "to improve" their search functions very often.
For me ... each "improvement" was worse than the last.

I haven't looked at fold3 lately, but will check it out today.

 

[bdtex]

It doesnt hurt to attempt to contact someone.

I messaged them today. No response yet. I wanted to check the desktop site before I said anything.

 

[huskerblitz]

I guess I'm not seeing much in the way of changes. Granted, I normally search for Union soldiers but the process to me seems to be the same or very similar.

 

[Northstep]

If it's just me, then somebody lemme know. If you find the secret to simplifying fold3 searches again, lemme know that too. I'm curious to know if others are seeing what I'm seeing. What worked fine a week or so ago, doesn't work now.

I feel your pain. I feel like I need to put on a life jacket before I sign in to Fold3. The water has gotten very deep with their recent changes. It seems to me things changed when they added some links back to files at Ancestry. Like the others, I can still select Confederate and do a Name search as before. However, there is a big problem is you add a Keyword for a more detailed search. Again, this problem exists because of the links back to files at Ancestry. For example, for some strange reason, the files at Ancestry are in two databases with the keyword "5th" in one and "Fifth" in the other. Searching the 5th will _not_ return results for the Fifth. I hope that makes sense. If you look at the Card Index at Ancestry you will see two different databases, both named CMSR for Confederate Veterans (not sure if that's the exact label, but close)

The second problem, for me, is that you now have to know all about company redesignations or you'll fall in a rabbit hole of poor search results. The average person doesn't know that Co. C became Co. H or when that occurred, for example. Anyone who ever served in Co. C is grouped in the database of Co. H even though the early muster rolls are clearly labeled Co. C on the images at Ancestry. The same is true for the "Memorial" pages at Fold3 when they added the names of soldiers of the company. And those silly "links" to Index Only files at ancestry (the gray clickable link box). That is of little to no value because the file in at Fold3! Why link back to that Index at Ancestry? On the Memorial Page you have to go to the top menu and click "Sources" to see the link to the CMSR. It's very convoluted to my older brain.

When I search, now, the first thing I do is go to the first Memorial result and click the dropdown menu to remove the Memorial pages so that I see only the CMSR results. After I find the card I want to research I can go back to the Memorial page to find out more info about the Regt/company. It used to be much more simple than this.

Lastly, the search algorithms at Ancestry have gotten dumber than in the past. It used to be that a search for Jonathan Phillips would return Jonathan and Johnathan fairly close together. Now, the results will show Jonathan, John, Jon, J. A., J. B. etc and 10 pages over you'll find Johnathan. And, their wildcard search results are very unreliable. I don't know what is going on and I have completed their "survey" many times. They must be having a lot of complaints or they would not be using the "Take the survey about your search experience" everytime you sign in and do a search. However, they don't seem to care what I have to say.

I hope something in this ranting is helpful to you or someone else.

 

[bdtex]

A little followup. I figured out how to speed the searches up in fold3 for the stuff that I look for. It's not as fast as it was. Whatever they did may make it more user friendly for subscribers who use fold3 to research different subjects than me. It's new to me but I don't see an improvement. Same thing with the NPS database. I've had to learn how to use it a different way and it's slower too.

 

[lupaglupa]

A little followup. I figured out how to speed the searches up in fold3 for the stuff that I look for. It's not as fast as it was. Whatever they did may make it more user friendly for subscribers who use fold3 to research different subjects than me. It's new to me but I don't see an improvement. Same thing with the NPS database. I've had to learn how to use it a different way and it's slower too.

More than half the time it seems when 'improvements' are made to some program it makes doing easy things harder while making a new and rare use possible.

 

[bayouace]

Ahhh, Progress. Lol

 

[East Tennessee Roots]

Everyone keep a heads-up. They usually offer a free week of their Civil War material in April.

 

[danny]

Looks like they won't search all Confederate files at once. You must be more precise and limited as to where they will search.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

More than half the time it seems when 'improvements' are made to some program it makes doing easy things harder while making a new and rare use possible.

That's an understatement !

I had to deal with such at work.
Every time something was working properly, our IT Department had to tear it down and implement the latest "soft ware".
Yeah, I understand everything is always evolving and many system/programs cease to be supported by the vendors.
But in my situation, our IT "foreign experts" really didn't understand what we did to start with ....

I don't see an improvement. Same thing with the NPS database.

Another understatement !



I gave up on the NPS site years ago.