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  • It's easier than ever before to check your entries from the 1881 Census - more details here

The new Find My Past is coming......

I was thinking that in the old FMP you could search the censuses one at a time. Now you will be able to search a number of censuses at the same time. This might be an improvement.?!?
 
Katie Bee said:
I was thinking that in the old FMP you could search the censuses one at a time. Now you will be able to search a number of censuses at the same time. This might be an improvement.?!?
Click to expand...

If your ancestors consistently gave the same age and birthplace it could be a big timesaver..... but mine didn't.
 
Furthering my research of the new FMP I tried to find England and Wales Marriages (1837 onwards) which is my default 'Marriage' research choice. I found it this way: Click on 'List all UK records': Select Marriages ( under Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records): Under Records in this Collection select Marriage Records 1796-2005. Finally select Marriage Records 1837-2008. After that it is familiar territory and may even offer slightly improved search criteria.

It is a kind of 'B' road approach, rather than the more direct 'A' road. The best I can say is you get there in the end but still too early to see it as a significant improvement.
 
Katie Bee said:
I was thinking that in the old FMP you could search the censuses one at a time. Now you will be able to search a number of censuses at the same time. This might be an improvement.?!?
Click to expand...
I have let my FMP subscription lapse ( not enough time to justify it just now!) I used the new FMP today to search a family group in the 1881 census...which is supposed to be free. In the old search you could look for someone and then view the household transcript.( Quite important if it is a common surname and you have some clues as to some other family members). Viewing the whole household is a big help in discovering additions since previous census and VITAL if going to be putting info onto Lost Cousins! All I can seem to be able to view is transcript for the individual, and can't fathom how to view the household. Has anyone else had this problem?
 
FyneLady said:
All I can seem to be able to view is transcript for the individual, and can't fathom how to view the household. Has anyone else had this problem?
Click to expand...
Hi FyneLady,
Did you scroll right down to the bottom of the page? After the individual's transcript are all the other people in the household.
So you get the whole household but in two parts!
 
Katie Bee said:
Hi FyneLady,
Did you scroll right down to the bottom of the page? After the individual's transcript are all the other people in the household.
So you get the whole household but in two parts!
Click to expand...
No I did not scroll down....although I have done now! Thank you. It is so confusing. Having got to the "print this page" and "report transcription error," I never expected more at the bottom!
I used to print off the transcripts of household groups, and found that really handy to work with. I can't see where that can be done any more.
I suppose I might get used to it, but if I am being required to adapt to a new system, I may as well give serious consideration to alternative sites before parting with my money!
 
The entry I printed was from a different census and it printed the individual's transcript on page 1 and the other household members on page 2.
The main problem is that you do not get everyone in the order they are on the census image or on the same page.
I much preferred being able to print the whole household as one.
 
I find the 'new' FMP nothing more than a time wasting frustration of waiting for endless pop up selection boxes... wonder if they get paid by the click now?
 
Bob Spiers said:
Furthering my research of the new FMP I tried to find England and Wales Marriages (1837 onwards) which is my default 'Marriage' research choice. I found it this way: Click on 'List all UK records': Select Marriages ( under Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records): Under Records in this Collection select Marriage Records 1796-2005. Finally select Marriage Records 1837-2008. After that it is familiar territory and may even offer slightly improved search criteria.

It is a kind of 'B' road approach, rather than the more direct 'A' road. The best I can say is you get there in the end but still too early to see it as a significant improvement.
Click to expand...

I'm having problems trying to search for a marriage in the GRO indexes. First of all I had problems getting to the right Record Collection having gone in via Life Events and ended up with too many results. Eventually I found the marriage - of a Jane Pritchard in 1853 - but there was nothing to tell me which record collection I'd found it in, nor did it give me the possible surnames of her spouse.

So then I tried Bob's method above to get (indirectly) to the GRO marriage index and discovered that there is nowhere to enter a date. So I did a search without a date and to my surprise I got no results - apparently no Jane Pritchards married anywhere between 1837 and 2005. o_O

I gave up and went to Freebmd - but what was I doing wrong?
 
Pauline said:
So then I tried Bob's method above to get (indirectly) to the GRO marriage index and discovered that there is nowhere to enter a date. So I did a search without a date and to my surprise I got no results - apparently no Jane Pritchards married anywhere between 1837 and 2005. o_O

I gave up and went to Freebmd - but what was I doing wrong?
Click to expand...

I agree there appears no place to enter a date -which is quite some omission - but are you sure you did not mix up the first name/last name boxes? I say this because when I checked it out the surname came first, so it required Pritchard then Jane in the next box. Anyway I entered Jane Pritchard (or Pritchard Jane) and it came up with a string of Jane Pritchards' with various dates of course, and a fair few in 1853. Had I entered a county I am sure this would have narrowed the field drastically.

However I am quite disturbed that there appears to be no facility for a date entry. I must pursue this further and perhaps contact FMP (for what it's worth) as this seems to be a thoughtless omission.

Incidentally Ancestry with a pretty straight forward search entry (including a date of course and without a county entry) found at least 10 candidates in 1853.
 
I'll be writing about the new findmypast search in my next newsletter so please identify and issues (or workarounds) that you've found as there are bound to be a few things I missed during my testing.

Thanks!
 
Bob Spiers said:
However I am quite disturbed that there appears to be no facility for a date entry. I must pursue this further and perhaps contact FMP (for what it's worth) as this seems to be a thoughtless omission.
Click to expand...

There is of course a place for optional keywords and entering the date did have the effect of reducing the search field.

I also tried a search via the 'Life Events' BMD search methodology. Interestingly this offered First Name/Last Name sequence and not the reverse as I encountered in my previous search. (Certainly inconsistency). It also invited an entry for birth and death years; but no marriage year and of course I did not have county detail. So I entered just her name and her marriage year in the Optional keywords box and asked it to search.

It accomplished the search reasonably quickly but, of course, included ALL instances of Jane Pritchards' either born, married or who had died in 1853. I can only assume the correct Jane Pritchard was shown as there was at least one who married in 1853.
 
peter said:
I'll be writing about the new findmypast search in my next newsletter so please identify and issues (or workarounds) that you've found as there are bound to be a few things I missed during my testing.Thanks!
Click to expand...

The inconsistency of Last Name/First Name within different searches and most particularly not providing a 'date' search parameter as in the attached England & Wales Marriages 1837-2008. (Imagine searching for a John Smith, even with a county entry!).

In other searches (eg Live Events BMDs - where the order is First Name/Last Name) -see attached -which allows B&D date entries, but none for marriage - there is an Optional Keywords box which can double as a date entry. But as it is dual purpose why not a Marriage date box?
 

Attachments

So frustrating, so slow, so disappointing. Everything that was good about FMP has gone. It used to be such a pleasure to search and navigate, always my first choice of site to begin a search. I've just renewed as well:mad:. Perhaps I should have renewed my Ancestry subscription instead:(. Will I get a refund if I cancel my FMP ?
 
I must have too many cookies or something - I can't get to the new FMP; I keep going to the old one (via both IE and Chrome). Doesn't sound like I am missing much....
 
Liberty said:
I must have too many cookies or something - I can't get to the new FMP; I keep going to the old one (via both IE and Chrome). Doesn't sound like I am missing much....
Click to expand...

Hmm....sounds like you have nice cookies....can I have some please ?
 
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