The new FindMyPast (Part 4)

[Jan Jones]

Thank you to Princess Poppy - I have been checking and getting rid of numerous Pop-Ups. Most disappear but a few return after a few days.   I am slowly rechecking every site I enter to see where they are coming from.  (Grandchildren and their wide-spread contacts can cause such problems - bless their little hearts!)

Still problems with findmypast - the census records transcriptions are awful!  I am going to other sites, too, and hoping this may settle down in time!

JJ

[Parmesan]

Well I think its a really off putting website.  I've whinged and moaned but decided that as I have a couple of months still to go on my subs I'd better try and get to grips.  I first of all saved all my likely datasets to bookmarks.

I seemed to be having some degree of success but then there are stupid little things like when searching BMDS and Parish records. There are links at the top in teeny tiny print that I really didn't notice at first cos everything else is a bit font! So one day I was searching the new Shropshire parish records and I could select everything in the dataset, BMDs wills and probate, then when I returned later I could only access one set at a time.  After a frustrating half an hour I realised I had to click on the teeny tiny link at the top and click All Collection to get everything.  Also if you select all items there is no option for keywords but if you select one at a time there is!

Likewise seach Census land and surveys there is no box for place of birth but if you search each one individually there is.

Another thing that really irritates me that on their feeback forum at least, they are using the American date format - why for goodness sake, its a British company!

[Parmesan]

I love the comment on britishgenes blogspot

"If a software hacker had got into the Findmypast website with the goal of sabotage, they could not have been more disruptive than the actions of the IT personnel who have been let lose [sic] in
supposed improvement."

[Jan Jones]

Hi Parmesan!
Re: Date formats.     
Since I research and correspond with both American and UK Tree-makers (as well as those in several other countries) I have made it a point to use the following format, which is clear to all:
     e.g.    01 Jan 1899                     or               25 Dec 2012

I think the U.S. formats have taken precedence due to the enormous amount of transcription done by the U.S. based LDS (Mormon) Church. For which we should all be grateful!
Jan

[Parmesan]

Hi
Well if dates are written 25 Dec 2012 in most, if not all genealogy forms, then it is obvious that it would translates to 25/12/12, otherwise everybody would be in a right mess.

It matters not who does the transcriptions, if they are doing them for a British Company presumably there are certain rules to be adhered to, spellings for one, you wouldn't expect to see 'color' for example, if you in Britain and using a British website. The date format should be dd/mm/yy

So there! 

[Plummiegirl]

I am astounded at the complete hash FindMyPast have made of their site.

It was a truly user friendly site in the past.

Search facility was so easy to use and the filtering down was great.

Printout of census was the BEST.  The main reason I had subs was for this as I do not like the Ancestry one.

Cancelled by automatic renewel 2 weeks ago, so as of 3 days ago I no longer have FindMyPast subs and you know what, I do not miss it.

Wonders - do the people who create these wonderful improvements actually use the site for research

[Parmesan]

I think if subscribers are having to completely relearn how to use a website its not a good strategy.  Some are trying, I am trying but there are so many bloomers its untrue and they are reliant and the current angry mob to tell them about the issues.

There's something wrong somewhere 

[Parmesan]

I am astounded at the complete hash FindMyPast have made of their site.

It was a truly user friendly site in the past.

Cancelled by automatic renewel 2 weeks ago, so as of 3 days ago I no longer have FindMyPast subs and you know what, I do not miss it.

I have cancelled autorenew but they also gave me two months free so I'll see how it goes.  My tree is done to all intents and purposes - as far as I want to go at least.  It'll just be new records I hear of that will spark my interest.  FindMyPast have just added Shropshire so glad to get those in under my current sub 

[Jomot]

For some unfathomable reason I can only search newspapers by adding the filters first, and only then can I add the search terms.   Then to add insult they also seem to have removed some of the newspaper titles anyway - the Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough is no longer there but is still on the full BNA site.