The new Findmypast (Part 2)

[locksmith]

On a positive note the new newspaper search is far better than the old one and now uses similar filters to the excellent BNA search facility. A great improvement.

The newspaper search is not like the BNA search facility. Here is the comparison

BNA, simple quick drop downs for publication place and Title.
FindMyPast, clunky time consuming filter selection, but has the advantage that you can select several which the BNA cannot.

BNA, Define range of dates day/month/year to day/month/year.
FindMyPast, Filter system that starts with every thing and eventually down to a single day but constricted to the range of the filter.

BNA, 4 search boxes that allow 'all these words' 'some of these words' 'none of these words' 'phrase' 'exact search.
FindMyPast 'name' ' surname' 'other', any attempt at using a wild cards doesn't work and gives you thousands (yes thousands) of results as the wild card rearch fails to restrict itself to single words but keeps on searching until (i think) the end of a page.

BNA, Save facility.
FindMyPast no save facility

The filtering on place and title remains almost as it was before, although achieved slightly differently. The selection of dates maybe someone's cup of tea, but not mine. If you want to look between say 5/2/1889 and 1/6/1892 it cannot be performed in one search but would need several ups and downs of the filters (together with green whirly arrows) and several separate searches.  Word/name searching is poor. The wild card search doesn't work. I would rather have the boolean searches provided by BNA than this.

Simon

[Hampshire Lass]

 

As Gadget says, that isn't the result we're looking for.

If I do a search on a specific town the only result I get is the names of all the people living there.

So for Lanchester in County Durham I get over 38,000 results!

I don't want to search on a specific street name either!

I am looking for the simple list of place names/street names only which came up on the old address search.

                                                                                                                                               
I misunderstood you then. I did use the address search on the old site but only for a specific road, so am not sure what you mean.......and now I can't discover that facility because it's gorn 

At least it is possible to narrow things down to all the houses in a road though, which I was struggling with at first.

It's all such an effort to work their filters out. Should need just common sense but I don't think my brain is hardwired the same way as their programmers.

[smudwhisk]

Don't know if this has already been posted but it would appear the Northamptonshire FHS's Wills and Admons index is now missing from the site.   Well I can't find it anyway so we'll see if their Contact Us form brings a reply this time.

The site is so slow it's ridiculous.  They're either doing a lot of "tweaks" in the background which is impacting service or they've really got a major infrastructure problem.  The old site had it's moments but the slowness of the new site over the last couple of days is way above that.

[smudwhisk]

While looking for the contact us form I noticed that FindMyPast had a "new" against their site T&Cs although it states at the bottom they were last updated in August 2012 so why they've listed them as new, unless they were missing from the site when it was originally launched..

Anyway, skimming through the sections, I noticed the following.  Now what's the chance this is the "new" part of the T&Cs.  

[Parmesan]

Just adding  my voice of dissent.  FindMyPast have decimated a once loved site.

I really do feel so sad about what they've done to it 

[avm228]

Yep - sometimes you don't know the street name or it was tucked into 'Other Establishments'. This facility is just not there anymore.

I do wish I'd kept a snip of the process and results to show.

It can't be just Jennifer and I that used it, can it 

Gadget

I am sure it was not just the two of you but I must say I did not know that facility was ever there (wish I had!).

I have just tried the new address search for an address previously found in all censuses 1861 onwards (Beresford Terrace in Islington, built in the 1850s).

1911: address search yields 0 results for Beresford Terrace
1901: the address does not come up on the dropdown list
1891: address comes up, list of results, but cannot see image (the eternal swirling circle)
1881: the address does not come up on the dropdown list
1871: the address does not come up on the dropdown list
1861: same as 1891

So: 6 inquiries, 2 results, 0 records viewed.

Incidentally, whoever thought abandoning wildcards in favour of scrollable dropdown lists was a good idea had apparently never used an iPad!

[Barbara F]

Gadget

I used to make use of the address search to identify roads within  a town.  I found it really helpful where roads have changed names or may have been transcribed/recorded oddly.  I could then "walk" along the street(s) I was interested in.

I haven't found a way of replicating this.  All I get are lists of people's names  - 1000s of them!

I am so glad I am not on PPV - I would be wasting so many credits just trying to sort out what I can do.

Barbara

[LizzieW]

avm - on the old site, if you clicked for census, you would get a list of years and by each one it said either search by name (or something similar) and just below that search by address.  I used it quite a lot.  Another good idea gone.

[avm228]

avm - on the old site, if you clicked for census, you would get a list of years and by each one it said either search by name (or something similar) and just below that search by address.  I used it quite a lot.  Another good idea gone.

I knew about search by address, but the only way I knew how to use it was to enter the target address with a wildcard e.g. Beresford*, and then a placename or reg district etc in the relevant fields.

It did not occur to me to use it speculatively to find all possible addresses in a town.