The new FindMyPast (Part 4)

[LizzieW]

All you have to do is find all the complaints on line (although they keep deleting them on their Facebook page) and you'll find you are not alone with your frustration. 

Also these topics on here.

www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=681106.0   (Part 1)

www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=682699.0   (Part 2)

www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=679363.msg5281098#msg5281098   (Part 3)

Lizzie

[Barbara.H]

I'm finding it impossible to formulate my search terms with their new set-up; and impossible to xtract the information i want from the new way of presenting the results. Everythi is taking FAR longer than it used to.

Why do they do this???

They say they did it so that they could accommodate more records - fair enough, but that should not have involved mangling the search facilities and presentation so badly.

I have a month of sub to go and won't renew - I'll go to their public library version if I'm desperate. Many people left pleas for a return of the old user interface on their 'feedback forum' on a thread that ran to over 2000 posts - but they have now all been deleted. It's a massive shame and I think they will come to regret it when subscribers go elsewhere.

  Barbara

Topics merged.

[Parmesan]

Some people are starting to ask for, and get, pro rata refunds.

I don't see much improvement since launch tbh.  What is that list of birthplaces all about? Ridiculous.

[Parmesan]

Annelies latest blog online.  Apparently they have a 'big job' to do. I'd say all the 'whinging' has been very justified.

[dawnsh]

As has been mentioned before, I think that using the new FindMyPast is just like using any new subscription site. I've had to take a long hard think about how things need to be done now step by step and forget about the old FindMyPast which has gone forever.

I'm slowly getting to grips with things and getting results: birth, marriage and death searches, parish register look-up, census stuff.

Please don't write off FindMyPast, I know it's a huge shock to the system, bear with it and you will get the reuslts you are looking for.

I've stopped using the feedback forum and gone back to emailing them via the contact us link at the bottom of their site.

I'm getting replies to all my emails generally within 2 days but never more then 3. I've been reassured that the things I'm asking for will be reinstated at some point, some of them already have.

[keyboard86]

Hi Dawnsh, have you figured out the relevance of birth town and birth place? 1911 just what do you put in other than a name/yob, with at least some certainty of a result?

Keyboard86

PS Liverpool a nightmare pob!

[Treetotal]

I'm leaving it alone and using Ancestry for the time being until known issues are sorted and someone masters it all and comes on here with a tutorial 

I have felt let down as I recently held an exhibition for which I was hoping to have supporting information from FindMyPast newspapers only to find that the articles I found weren't legible when printed

Carol

[Parmesan]

As has been mentioned before, I think that using the new FindMyPast is just like using any new subscription site. I've had to take a long hard think about how things need to be done now step by step and forget about the old FindMyPast which has gone forever.

I'm slowly getting to grips with things and getting results: birth, marriage and death searches, parish register look-up, census stuff.

Please don't write off FindMyPast, I know it's a huge shock to the system, bear with it and you will get the reuslts you are looking for.

I've stopped using the feedback forum and gone back to emailing them via the contact us link at the bottom of their site.

I'm getting replies to all my emails generally within 2 days but never more then 3. I've been reassured that the things I'm asking for will be reinstated at some point, some of them already have.

Do you think 6/7 weeks is a reasonable timescale to 'get used to' something you had paid for and were using quite happily previously? And you're not proficient yet. I bet when you first joined FindMyPast it took you about 6/7 minutes to get great results?

The fact is we were fed corporate bull s about a 'simpler to use Findmypast', its proved anything but simple.  Schoolboy errors are being flagged daily still and now they say 'its a big job'. No sht Sherlock! Who were the imbeciles who so called 'tested' the new site? The whole experience has been horrendous and its not over yet.

[dawnsh]

Hi Dawnsh, have you figured out the relevance of birth town and birth place? 1911 just what do you put in other than a name/yob, with at least some certainty of a result?

Keyboard86

PS Liverpool a nightmare pob!

There are 2 ways of searching the census (I know, a bit of a faff)

http://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-united-kingdom-records-in-census-land-and-surveys/and_census

http://search.new.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/1911-census-for-england-and-wales

if I just put Henry Sherry in both, no variants, no year or place of birth, I get the same 20 results.

I found the the 2nd search (world) is quite sensitive and if you put in something like a place of birth that doesn't match completely, you get no results. One Henry in the results was quite specific with his place of birth

Where Born    1 KING ST CITY OF LONDON

Narrowing down by year or county does work for Henry Sherry. In either of the searches if you put in London as a keyword in the 1st search and London as the county in the 2nd search you get the same 6 results.

Who have you been trying to find?