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Census Lookups General Lookups => Census and Resource Discussion => Topic started by: Candolim_Imp on Thursday 19 July 12 20:09 BST (UK)
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Hi folk,
I have found a few threads discussing the pros & cons of the search engines on each of the sites and comparing the sets of records both sites share, but I've not yet found anything that really compares the resources themselves.
I'm a diehard Ancestry user and I'm happy with the search facility. I've no intention of leaving Ancestry, but I'm looking at possibly taking advantage of FindMyPast's current discount IF I can be convinced that it will offer enough records that I can't find on Ancestry - different/better scans or transcriptions aren't enough. I need to know I'll get £99 worth of extra records from it.
It's a little hard to glean from the general lists of content, as each has such a range of resources, it's hard to know whether I'd just be doubling up on records already available in Ancestry.
Any thoughts?
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Use ancestry from public libraries and pay for FindMyPast.
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I couldn't possibly - I work office hours and live on Ancestry when I'm home.
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I have both - I thought I'd let Ancestry go when it came up for renewal couple of months ago as I seemed to spend more time on FindMyPast but after a few weeks I was back with them.
I think its really hard to answer ... it really depends on what areas of the country are most interest and occupations - I've found stuff on FindMyPast couldn't find on Ancestry and vice versa not just specialist records but things that didn't show up in census searches on one but did on other. I also think it depends how long you've been researching if you are relatively new or not been all that successful I would definitely say have both.
If you can afford it I would take the opportunity of the discount.
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I think I am leaning towards making use of the discount. However, it seems a little short on Lancashire records, which is where most of my lot are from - especially what is now Merseyside. The free search suggests there are little or no church records from the Liverpool area, as opposed to quite an extensive Liverpool resource on Ancestry.
I am pretty experienced, I've been at it for 10 years and have 12,500 folk in my tree (and some professional research & radio genealogy advice work), but the extent of my research is partly what's tempting me - tracking down some of those annoyingly elusive people. I also have a few merchant seamen amongst them, and these records are in FindMyPast (key people I have through the National Archives, but others are missing). I'm also hoping the probate/will information may throw some extra information up.
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Both seem to add new databases regularly; have a look at their blogs. Links are on their home pages.
Nanny Jan
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I've been thinking of subscribing to FindMyPast and running to two alongside for comparison. The discount sounds like an incentive but I can't find any mention of it on the FindMyPast website.
Can anybody guide me to it?
Christine
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I haven't tried any of these to see if they are still valid but may be worth trying.
I also see there's a 14 day free trial in this lot!
http://www.vouchercodes.co.uk/findmypast.com
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I use ancestry for up to the 1901 but as findmypast put details on a lot quicker for the 1911, i subscribed for that on their site. I will probably still stick with ancestry.
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Like baggygenes, I also have both and find both sites to be necessary resources.
Sometimes for instance, they have different transcriptions for indecipherable names on a census. They also have different methods of searching available and the result of both of these facts is that if you have a record you just cannot find on one site, you can on the other. This enabled me only last night to find an elusive family on the 1841 and 1851 censuses and they were elusive simply because the name had been drastically mistranscribed.
Also the 1911 is better on FindMyPast and the military records are good.
Have you thought of www.thegenealogist.co.uk that's excellent also.
Best wishes HL
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Like baggygenes, I also have both and find both sites to be necessary resources.
I have both as well, the last few days I have found that some of the census records are on one and not the other, sometimes they are on both. The 1851 had been eluding me for one family, and like HL had found the name had been mistranscribed as well.
Cheers
KHP
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Thought that Candolim_Imp might be interested to know that according to the latest addition of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine there is going to be a release on Ancestry of Lancashire records later in the year. I have't got the magazine to hand so cannot give any more details. It will be a bonus for me and many others I expect. My father's side of the family is Lancashire based so I hope to find some helpful information.
Regards
Doddie
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Excellent. They already have very good coverage of Lancs & Liverpool, but I'm always on the lookout for more!
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The search engine is far superior on Ancestry than Findmypast - you can't search by Christian name only on FindMyPast, they insist on a surname. The parish records on FindMyPast are a bit of a farce, in Wales they are only CinW records, if there, no non conformist records and no municipal cemeteries etc, it is a false claim they have Wales records, they don't.
The only database of use on FindMyPast is people leaving the UK pre 1960 and they don't have any USA Federal census like Ancestry, who also have a wealth of US State databases.
If I use FindMyPast I do have access but I don't pay for it myself
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The search engine is far superior on Ancestry than Findmypast - you can't search by Christian name only on FindMyPast, they insist on a surname.
You can search on FindMyPast with first name only as I have done this with census records and baptisms etc. I think in the past it was restricted to having a surname but they seem to have tweaked the search engines a little recently. That said, it is still more limited than on ancestry, particularly when looking for baptisms/marriages/burials. Hopefully they may take notice and allow searches to include partners or parents. ::)
As to Hercule Poirot's comment about the FindMyPast Wales collection not be correct as it doesn't include non-conformist or cemetery records, to be honest the same could be said for some of ancestry's collections as the so-called London collection from the LMA doesn't include Westminster parishes apart from BTs, the same with some Surrey parishes, albeit that Surrey PRs are apparently due on ancestry next year.
I have ancestry, FindMyPast and thegenealogist subscriptions but all for particular reasons. I tend to use ancestry the most since it is more versatile but often have to dip into FindMyPast for census entries that I can't find on ancestry. The newer data sets of parish regsiters on FindMyPast have become useful, but that's because they cover the counties I am researching in. As for thegenealogist, well I only use it for non-conformist registers and the PCC Wills they have been digitising from microfilm copies from the NA. Just wish they would hurry up and digitise some more since it's been stuck with 1660 (apart from a few odd years) as the earliest for well over a year now. Saves having to pay £3.50 per time from the NA. ;D
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- you can't search by Christian name only on FindMyPast, they insist on a surname.
Not entirely correct I'm afraid - you can search FindMyPast by Christian name only (at least you can on the censuses) - I've just been doing so ;)
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I will have to disagree what last but one poster stated about Christian names search.
Perhaps he / she would like to do a Birth, Marriage and Death search only using a Christian name, a point of note on FindMyPast is 2 little asterisks which is INFORMATION REQUIRED.
Ancestry lets you do a Christian name only search, and nobody, and I mean nobody, FindMyPast, GR etc etc will allow such a search.
A lot of us cannot afford multiple memberships until we win the lottery, although I am quite happy to have my monthly non contracted world wide membership with Ancestry
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I will have to disagree what last but one poster stated about Christian names search.
Perhaps he / she would like to do a Birth, Marriage and Death search only using a Christian name, a point of note on FindMyPast is 2 little asterisks which is INFORMATION REQUIRED.
As per my previous post, I said baptisms et al, these are NOT the BMD indexes Hercule Poirot has mentioned.
As for having three subscriptions, well depends what you prefer to spend your money on doesn't it (in any case cost is split between two of us). ;)
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Personally like the layout of the results on FindMyPast compared to Ancestry and not having to fiddle about with dropdown checking this area only and exacts etc so I don't get a load of results that don't match what I entered but Ancestry will accept wildcards more easily and I do like looking through the trees.
I think its generally agreed there are pros and cons to both sites and some will prefer one to the other. The original question was really whether its worth having both. I think both sites subscriptions are expensive (and yes understandably so if we want new records to appear and for the sites to run well - better get that in quick) but I guess that is relative to what you can afford and I for one have certainly had my moneys worth out of both of them.
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Until yesterday, I've only used FindMyPast for the free 1911 during the World Cup and I used the indeces from FindMyPast and the 1911 official site combined to glean information to then narrow searches down to find them in the census summary books on Ancestry (before the transcriptions were online). I found this cheat to be very helpful, as I could use name of head of household to determine number of occupants.
I did join last night. I couldn't find the voucher code box and ended up buying it at the full price, thinking the voucher code would come up on the next page. However, when I complained they insisted it had been there, but gave me a refund of the 10%.
Up to now, I doubt I'll keep it beyond the year, as I've got quite adept at creative wildcard searching on Ancestry and I can usually find the census returns I need. Ancestry is far superior for Lancashire church records & directories, especially Liverpool. I like Ancestry seach engine and that I can search counties on a full site search & get a summary of all datasets in one search. However, It was good to get a proper scan of my GGGG uncle's army discharge papers of 1834 (which I bought from the NA years ago, but as a black & white photocopy - now I have a colour scan). It has also been amazing to get my partner's uncle's photo (who was a merchant sailor, drowned in 1940) and grandfather from Africa who he never met. So the merchant navy and armed forces datasets are nice to have, if only for a year.
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Hi all,
If you want to join FindMyPast time in the following code "fmp10" for 10% off the price.
Hope this helps
Dave
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Hi,
I use Ancestry at my local library,but a friend lets me look on her find my past. I think find my past is better,as its better set out! :)
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I have both Ancestry and FindMyPast and find both to be extremely useful.
My pet peeve with ancestry is that they present me with stupid 'close matches' when the real 'perfect' match is in a list of thousands of others!
My pet peeve with FindMyPast is that if a census has no match within + or - two years for a particular census, you can't click on the year with 0 matches and tweak the birth year for that year, you have to go back to the modify the initial search .... most frustrating! One with any matches in them, you can modify and re-search, just not those with 0 matches....which are probaly the very ones you want to modify (*rant over*)
Kevin
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My FindMyPast ran out yesterday .. can't afford to renew and really I need to see some new resources added for areas of interest to make it worth the £ - but I'm wondering how long I can hold out without resorting to the credit card
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My pet peeve with ancestry is that they present me with stupid 'close matches' when the real 'perfect' match is in a list of thousands of others!
If you use the old search and ensure you tick exact matches only, you don't get this problem. You can use soundex or * in the names with exact matches ticked. ;)
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I'm thinking about buying a subscription to Find My Past. Is the 1911 Scotland census available on it? Are there different types of subscriptions? If so, which is the best to purchase?
Nan
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Hi
Neither Ancestry or FindMyPast have the 1911 Scottish census yet, when they do it is likely that it will only be transcriptions as Scottish census images are only available on Scotlandspeople.
Andy
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Whatever compaints some of us Americans may have with the Obama government at least the 1940 US Census was published on the Internet earlier this year, is now fully indexed by volunteers, and ready to go. FREE!
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Hi all
I had Ancestry for years, but got a bit fed up with them, so now I alternate. I had a six months sub with The Genealogist, I am now with FindMyPast until Ocotober and when that runs out I will go back to Ancestry. They are all good, but for different things.
Carol
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It is possible to buy a 3 month voucher for Find My Past from:
http://www.my-history.co.uk/acatalog/Find_My_Past_Subscription_Vouchers.html#aFMP3M
Tofgem