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

Bob Spiers said:
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?
Click to expand...

That's it! I hadn't noticed when changing the page on which I started the search that the surname and forename boxes had changed places. No wonder I got no results.
 
Bob Spiers said:
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.
Click to expand...

If you start the search via the Life Events page then you have two ways to narrow down which record set to search in. Towards the bottom of the page you can choose a Record Collection (Marriages & Divorces) and then further narrow it down in the Record Set box (England & Wales marriages). You then get no option to include a marriage date.

However, if instead you select Marriages & Divorces from the All Collections dropdown at the top of the page, then the page reloads and you get a 'When' box into which you can add the marriage date. You can still select England & Wales marriages in the Record Set box further down the page.

When I tried adding the date as an Optional keyword the number of results seem to vary each time, sometimes including my Jane Pritchard (Malmesbury RD) and sometimes not.
 
emjay said:
Will I get a refund if I cancel my FMP ?
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Not if your renewal was more than 7 days ago & not even if it was yesterday if you have looked at any records since the renewal.

I think FMP will see a marked decline in renewals, never mind new subscriptions. I certainly wouldn't have subscribed if my 14 day trial had been using the new format, & I won't be renewing again unless FMP make major changes to the 'new' so that it functions more like the 'old'.
 
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.
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Someone's obviously been listening to this conversation - I've just tried again using Bob's method to get to the GRO marriages (via List all UK records), and there's now a Year box. :)
 
STOP PRESS...would you believe I needed to check on a marriage for real (as opposed to just testing the new FMP), it was circa 1860 and I used the Marriages 1837-2008 method. Guess what has miraculously appeared on the data entry page, nothing short of a (Marriage) DATE BOX! Hitherto missing. FM have finally awakened to the fact the date is a critical search parameter. You can of course do the +/- as under the old system.

So perhaps they are finally listening? Of course it is a small step and still leaves them to be consistent with first name/last name requirements -and I am sure many other things to come - but it is heading hopefully in the right direction
 
Pauline said:
Someone's obviously been listening to this conversation - I've just tried again using Bob's method to get to the GRO marriages (via List all UK records), and there's now a Year box. :)
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Sorry Pauline I genuinely did not spot your post but glad to hear someone else found the year box.
 
Something to bear in mind is that users of findmypast's international sites have always had to make do with a very similar search to the one that we're now faced with - this is why until now I've always recommended that people with British ancestry subscribe via the UK site, even if at times it was slightly more expensive.
 
peter said:
Something to bear in mind is that users of findmypast's international sites have always had to make do with a very similar search to the one that we're now faced with - this is why until now I've always recommended that people with British ancestry subscribe via the UK site, even if at times it was slightly more expensive.
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Yes, you have always championed FMP, but such is your influence that they will have to take heed of any adverse comments that may come from yourself.
 
peter said:
Something to bear in mind is that users of findmypast's international sites have always had to make do with a very similar search to the one that we're now faced with - this is why until now I've always recommended that people with British ancestry subscribe via the UK site, even if at times it was slightly more expensive.
Click to expand...
I for one very much appreciated your recommendation to the UK site & the far better search it offered at that time compared to the Aussie search which was & still is awful.

Is it my imagination or are these new 'improvements' making FMP more like the search now on FamilySearch.org?
 
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....
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Me too Liberty, the new format doesn't sound very good does it? I'm not logging out until I'm forced to !! It all goes back to the old saying" If it aint broke don't fix it"
 
I also was using the old search until today but then I was switched without warning and unable to go back to the old version. Should access to the previous search be removed during the period of current subscriptions? Isn't the removal of existing facilities a breach of contract?

The new search is much harder to use and it appears to have been designed (?) by someone who has not had to use it for their own research. There are many usability aspects which make operation very tedious even if additional facilities have/will be included (which is still in doubt). The interface looks very clean and pretty but the layout wastes a lot of space and could have been made much more compact and easier to use, without the need for so much scrolling and cursor movement from one side of the screen to the other.

Functionally, I find the inability to specify the name of a spouse when looking for marriage details is very restrictive and makes such searches much slower. The results summary also does not list the name of the spouse so each record has to be opened in turn when trying to find the required record.

Similarly, if the mother's maiden name could be specified for births after 1911, it would be much easier to find offspring when the numbers and names are unknown.
 
Bryman said:
Functionally, I find the inability to specify the name of a spouse when looking for marriage details is very restrictive and makes such searches much slower. The results summary also does not list the name of the spouse so each record has to be opened in turn when trying to find the required record.
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Really?! That used to be a fantastic way of homing in on partners in a marriage.
Can you still, when searching censuses, specify the name of someone else in the household? You used to be able to do that with the Genes Reunited search (otherwise not very good) then that went when they overhauled things.
 
I have been unable to conclude any search in the new FMP for most of the afternoon, receiving error message each time

Sorry, an error occurred while processing your request.

Our support team have been notified of this error and will correct it as soon as possible.
findmypast.co.uk

I do actually get to search results, but cannot click on the image or transcription. Oh well 'yarboo sucks' I will try Ancestry!
 
Seems they are still building and tweaking. A premature launch perhaps? Yesterday was not so bad except for being exceptionally Slowwwwwww , I went into the kitchen, put the kettle on, and still 'buffering' when I returned. Family Search was lightning fast by comparison.
 
So far all my searches (for known facts) have been so s l o w . And then come up with no records at all when there were last week.

Why is there a 'Newspapers, Directories & Social History' category in the search drop down menu and also a 'Newspapers & Periodicals' ?

It looks to me as if they've launched just a bit too soon. It's sooo frustrating!
 
Bob Spiers said:
I have been unable to conclude any search in the new FMP for most of the afternoon, receiving error message each time

Sorry, an error occurred while processing your request.

Our support team have been notified of this error and will correct it as soon as possible.
findmypast.co.uk

I do actually get to search results, but cannot click on the image or transcription. Oh well 'yarboo sucks' I will try Ancestry!
Click to expand...

I haven't even got any search results! I get the above message from the search function.
FMP managed my first search in about 5 minutes, and came up with the error message above.
My second search has just finished in the same error after 10 minutes!
I came on here to complain while the search was still going.

I was searching BMD and Parish Registers and when I chose to 'filter by Collection' and chose Marriage and Divorce, I assumed that 'filter by record set' would be all Marriage and Divorce records.
Silly me!!!! Filter by record set gave me baptisms, burials, the whole lot starting at letter 'A' heaven help me if I want a record set starting with the letter 'Z', they only show a few at a time before you have to click the more button.
My head hurts. I think I need a lie down in a darkened room.
It seems to be getting worse by the day.
 
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