RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: thebounder on Sunday 25 September 22 12:25 BST (UK)
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1. Provide the option to sort on the columns. If you display the births registered for the name of Brown, there are an awful lot of entries. It would be nice to get them presented in forename order, or place of birth, etc.
2. An indicator to say that we had previously viewed the page.
Find My Past already has both these options.
3. The ability to only show entries that have been added or amended in a specific time period, such as "All entries", "last 3 months", "last year" so that we can instantly see only the entries that have been added since our last check.
I sometimes get an e-mail from Ancestry to send them my ideas for improving the site, and I always reply, but it makes no difference.
I'm sure you all have your own "wish list" for Ancestry, and also Find My Past.
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? your question, observation etc..........Wish List.
1. Provide the option to sort on the columns. If you display the births registered for the name of Brown, there are an awful lot of entries. It would be nice to get them presented in forename order, or place of birth, etc.
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I put brown in search and 77 million plus, showing places of death, births and years...........
It's up to you, the user to narrow down to get the best results.
2. An indicator to say that we had previously viewed the page.
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Already does this...........
Find My Past already has both these options.
3. The ability to only show entries that have been added or amended in a specific time period, such as "All entries", "last 3 months", "last year" so that we can instantly see only the entries that have been added since our last check.
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So you would like a totally personal search engine for you.
Wow this would be good.
I have never wished anything since I have used Ancestry. Quite happy with it.
Not keen on FindMyPast.
Maggsie
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Get rid of the constant defaulting of almost everything to the USA!
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I much prefer FindMyPast to Ancestry but use Ancestry for DNA/trees, etc. and searching for ancestors/kin from non-UK countries (FindMyPast are getting better here).
I dislike Ancestry for many reasons but especially because of its wild matching, both geographically and chronologically, even when specific places and dates are specified with given ranges.
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Even with many exact searches on FindMyPast I get wild results of records that are on there but not indexed like many of the old electoral rolls are.
On Ancestry I often type in name and surname and get results which have both words separately on the page but in separate sentences. For instance if I type "Peter Cartwright" I often get the words "Peter" and "Cartwright" on the same page instead of the actual name "Peter Cartwright". Perhaps I am doing something wrong and need to chance the search preferences or not, I dont know.
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I've not had anything like that on FindMyPast, coombs. Can you give an example so that I can try, please?.
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Maggsie said today:- 'I have never wished anything since I have used Ancestry. Quite happy with it.
Not keen on FindMyPast'.
Gadget said today:- 'I much prefer FindMyPast to Ancestry but use Ancestry for DNA/trees, etc. and searching for ancestors/kin from non-UK countries (FindMyPast are getting better here). I dislike Ancestry for many reasons but especially because of its wild matching, both geographically and chronologically, even when specific places and dates are specified with given ranges'.
I am fortunate to be able (at the moment - might have to change in the future) to subscribe to both FindMyPast and Ancestry -- both sites have 'pluses and minuses' in what they offer in search terms and results. Have to agree with Gadget that Ancestry does come up with so called matches around the world (especially the USA) and the so called match has nothing to do with you.
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Get rid of the constant defaulting of almost everything to the USA!
Seconded!
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Get rid of the constant defaulting of almost everything to the USA!
Agreed 100%
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Get rid of the constant defaulting of almost everything to the USA!
Seconded!
How many times have I typed "Montgomeryshire" to the 11th letter? Because until you do all the many places called "Montgomery" in the US take precedence.
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How many times have I typed "Montgomeryshire" to the 11th letter? Because until you do all the many places called "Montgomery" in the US take precedence.
Oh yes. Sometimes you have to give the whole address - Wales or England or UK!
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My personal favourite was when I typed in "Wishaw, Lanark, Scotland" only for Ancestry to turn it into "Wishaw, Lanark, Scotland County, Texas, USA"
What I have found seems to work fairly well, at least with Scottish locations is to always type "shire" on the end. Ancestry appears to recognise "Lanarkshire" as being the Scottish county, rather than transporting your Ancestors to the other side of the Atlantic.
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I've not had anything like that on FindMyPast, coombs. Can you give an example so that I can try, please?.
A bit complicated but if I type in a wildcard for forename but the full surname such as "Ja*s" instead of James, then surname "Fishwick" for example, and a date range, 1780 with 20 years either side, type "Search", then you get 9 pages worth of searches, and if you go to Page 5, you get results for "Lancashire Registers And records" for 1611, well out of the date range I asked for, and the First Name, Last Name, Year of Birth and Year of death is just dashes for the 1611 results. Try this and see if you get the same results as I did.
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I get 6037 cases including many blanks. I don't get the same records as you on page 5 but I do have records that are way past the cut off.
I used the general search on the main page.
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Have use both sites, but let subs lapse on both so only sometimes got a sub to both. The main reason I use FindMyPast is because thay have Northern Irish Newspapers and don't stick military records in Fold3 though their sub is dearer to start with.
I would certainly not say I have never wished for anything from Ancestry and I agree with 'thebounder' that I find Findmypast's option to sort by columns very helpful, not just by forname but is great to be able to have a 5 year window ordered oldest to newest or sort by county or place or age etc. Is something I fed back to them some years back.
Not bothered about a tick to say have viewed the page as when scrolling through census images or newspaper deaths or looking for someone else things get ticked that you a year or more later find you actually have a spouse on. (scrolling to the beginning of a set of images using thumbnails is easier on Ancestry).
I find Findmypasts Advanced search options generally better than Ancestry's to narrow down within collections eg for Ireland easy to specify specific Catholic Parishes and not resort to having to try location keywords which sometimes assist and sometimes are not in the index so useless so I search there in preference and can do so as is one of their free collections (sub on Ancestry but both used NLI images and unusually jointly indexed).
The ability to specify eg an Irish county and it produce results from all registration districts within is useful, one search instead of several seperate keywords for each district.
I find Newspapers.com USA, Canada marriages and death indexes hard to narrow successfully.
I see what Coombs is saying had similar only yesterday looking for an early Army record (Fold3 on Ancestry) but at least when sort by year can then skip to page X & find them. When using fornames only or Wildcards with few letters of surnames is great to be able to sort and skip to the surnames or fornames starting with a particular letter, on Ancestry have to visually scan each row of 50 results then the next page etc. Many of the Advanced search features on FindMyPast are only available when narrow down using the Catalogue. https://www.lostcousins.com/newsletters2/midnov21news.htm#MasterclassFMP but collection options differ on Ancestry too.
I like the fact FindMyPast tend to explain the particular record sets in detail, more so than Ancestry where are on both sites.
However, both have pros and cons and as there are transcription errors on both, or a page skipped, is useful sometimes to eg try a search even without a sub on FindMyPast as there will generally be enough info indexed for free to then narrow down and find the same on Ancestry if have failed there.
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I do like that Ancestry has added a "viewed today" button that appears.
On the DNA front I would like to be able connect DNA matches to trees other than the tester's tree. I keep rather bare-bones public pedigrees attached to DNA testers and would prefer to not have that tree going "wide". I keep several other trees on Ancestry with descendants of siblings of ancestors and I would far prefer to attach people to those trees.
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Just been reminded by a question posed on Facebook of another feature that would be useful.
On Findmypast one can input eg on the 1911 census Thomas S Smith and it will produce results for Thomas S, Thomas Samuel, Thomas Stanley, Thomas Sydney etc before moving onto plain Thomas Smith.
On Ancestry have to just input Thomas Smith (21,284 results) if exact Thomas S Smith (13 results) does not produce the desired person and scroll through the pages [in reality one would try some sort of locality too].
Situation might be get a spouse's name from eg a 1915 or 1925 marriage index entry which just has middle initial and want to find earlier census or his birth or later 1939 reg with wife Mary of the right age & a death in the same locality as her.
Is just a search feature that makes things easier, and lot easier for very common surnames where the middle initial/name is the most valuable identifier.
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Get rid of the constant defaulting of almost everything to the USA!
Another agreeing to that. Although it did cause great hilarity when it told me ancestors were buried in Victoria, Trinidad and Tobago. Son suggested we wait until the next time Australia plays a test there to visit.
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Just to add a big difference between FindMyPast and Ancestry is that when you find a potential mistake in a transcription, FindMyPast acknowledge that you have submitted a correction followed up by letting you know if the correction has been accepted or not -- this is something that lets Ancestry down as they never acknowledge your suggested correction never mind letting you know the outcome.
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While Ancestry may not provide confirmation they always allow the amendment as a variation which I think is actually better.
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There are so many features missing on ancestry that need to be added it would take ages to list them. At least though it isn't as bad as myheritage's site to search for proper results.
Things I would like to see would be features revolving around transcriptions like:
Allow users to add details (names, dates, etc) to non-transcribed pages or details. I have so many records which can't be saved or searched because the transcriber couldn't be bothered or can't read properly and therefore just skipped the name.
Allow users to add beneficiaries in wills to page details and searchable (similar to other household members in census records) or better yet a full searchable transcription similar to the Oxfordshire wills database by the Oxfordshire OPC.
Make the 'find others researching this person' link to actually show tree results only for trees that have that specific record saved to an individual that matches the name and date, not random trees which dont even have the same name as that transcribed in the record.
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I think I'd settle for parish registers search boxes to be baptism and burial dates again, instead of birth and death, which doesn't always match the indexing! And to always be able to search with the parish in the Place boxes instead of the Keyword box.
And I'd love the Wills to have names and places other than the testators indexed!
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Currently the only feature I would like is to be able to type in a Christian name and surname and actually get the right result. The amount of times I have had ancestry return a negative result, only for me to find the record manually, spelt exacly like I searched for.
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Two surnames in my tree are James and Vincent. Even though I put them firmly in the surname box I finish up with everyone who has James or Vincent anywhere in their name, so I agree with BristolClark.
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Not exactly 3 features, more a question.
On the 26th September, Ancestry added to their records
UK, Coal Mining Accidents and Deaths Index, 1878-1951, it is only an index so no supporting documents and is taken from
https://www.cmhrc.co.uk/site/disasters/index.html
Having found a number of errors relating to names, one totally incorrect. Note these are in an area that I know and after checking with Church Records, Civil Registration and Newspapers have corrected on Ancestory.
Then decided to notify the Coalmining History site, connection as above. However the search box appears not to be working.
Does anyone know if this is just a temporary fault, or has Ancestry obtained this index from a site which is now closed?
Do feel it is important that those who lost their lives should have their names recorded correctly.
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When I first consulted this, it was run by Ian Winstanley. I've not looked at it for a long time. Maybe Ancestry obtained an earlier version.
PS I seem to remember contacting Ian about one of my ancestors, so he was very much 'hands on' then
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Yes the index on Ancestry, is by Ian Winstanley, and as you say so is the Web site.
Have just done a google search, the Solicitors who ran the web site went into liquidation 2016, Ancestry acquired Ian Winstanley’s Index and possibly other items
https://pasttopresentgenealogy.co.uk/2016/10/18/another-family-history-website-bites-the-dust/
Thanks.
For others searching the Index on Ancestry, there appears to be a number of errors, and in the area I have corrected the place of residence given in most cases is civil registration district, very different to actual place of residence.
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And I'd love the Wills to have names and places other than the testators indexed!
And me, especially for the PCC wills, but that would be a mammoth task to do the beneficiaries of the PCC wills, if that is what you mean. I guess beneficiaries of wills from a certain county may be easier but would still be a huge task.