Ancestry problems, how is FindMyPast nowadays?

[treesquirrel]

I have found personally that the find my past site is much better for search results generally. Ancestry tends to through all sorts of unrelated records into the search results. It takes quite a lot of scrolling down sometimes to find the relevant record. I mean something as simple as putting a specific place into the search box and the results nearer the top arent in that place at all, but the ones further down are.

Find my past search results are more accurate. But then there is lots on Ancestry that is really useful, like the 'connected records' that can be viewed once you click on the census results.

I find that find my past has more 'original' parish records online, whereas ancestry has often just transcriptions of the parish register.

I think in an ideal world it would be great to have both find my past and ancestry at the same time! So then you can go between them to narrow down and highlight different search results.

[smudwhisk]

I find that find my past has more 'original' parish records online, whereas ancestry has often just transcriptions of the parish register.

I think you'll find in actual fact Ancestry have more than FindMyPast.  They both have some the same but overall Ancestry has more exclusive digitised original parish registers from individual Archives than FindMyPast.

FindMyPast have exclusive:

Devon
Canterbury Archives
Westminster Archives
Leicestershire & Rutland
Staffordshire
Shropshire
Welsh Archives Service, so I accept more than one county but not complete
North and East Yorkshire
Cheshire
Lincolnshire
Portsmouth

Ancestry have:

London Metropolitan Archives
Dorset
Gloucestershire
Somerset
Oxfordshire
Wiltshire
Northamptonshire
West Yorkshire
Derbyshire
Lancashire & Liverpool
Bexley (Kent) Archives
Surrey History Centre and Sutton Archives
Birmingham
Wigan Archives
Manchester

Both have Norfolk and FindMyPast now have Warwickshire too which was originally exclusive to Ancestry.

I'm sure if I've missed any someone will correct me.

[rosie99]

According to Surrey History Centre's website FindMyPast have these records
Pre 1914 school admission registers and log books from 154 schools in Surrey
Surrey Recruitment Registers 1908-1933
Surrey Quarter Sessions 1780-1820
Surrey Military Tribunals 1915-1918
The Surrey Marriage Index, created by the West Surrey Family History Society
Surrey Institutional Records 1788-1939
British Army, East Surrey Regiment 1899-1919
British Army, Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment 1901-1918

[smudwhisk]

Quite possibly Rosie, but I was responding to treesquirrel's statement about FindMyPast having more parish register images than Ancestry rather than other types of records.

[rosie99]

Quite possibly Rosie, but I was responding to treesquirrel's statement about FindMyPast having more parish register images than Ancestry rather than other types of records.

I was not querying what you had posted, just adding to it 

[smudwhisk]

Quite possibly Rosie, but I was responding to treesquirrel's statement about FindMyPast having more parish register images than Ancestry rather than other types of records.

I was not querying what you had posted, just adding to it 

Sorry, its early.

I initially posted as was rather surprised at the statement from treesquirrel stating FindMyPast had more original parish registers than Ancestry, something that doesn't really appear to be supported by the evidence.  Granted that Ancestry's exclusivity for Warwickshire PRs has obviously expired as they have been released on FindMyPast but otherwise I would still state that Ancestry have more.  FindMyPast also have in my mind considerably more Parish Register transcripts than Ancestry.  Both have data sets pulled from Familysearch, but in the case of FindMyPast some of the extra is due to the fact that much of the data that was on the Federation of Family History Societies' own website was transferred over to FindMyPast when it was closed down.

Both have the non-conformist registers that originally were exclusive to BMDRegisters and TheGenealogist and while FindMyPast has exclusivity on catholic registers, neither are really "parish registers" in the true sense of the usage in England and Wales anyway.

[treesquirrel]

smudwhisk,

I must admit that recently I have been researching in North Yorkshire and Westminster and Middlesex on both Ancestry and FindMyPast, so perhaps that ties in with the list you gave, as at least the North Yorkshire and Westminster areas seem to be biased towards FindMyPast.

I suppose it's all down to which county you are researching as to which website holds the most parish registers or BTs. Along with how user-friendly each person finds the search process/display of results :-)

I think using both sites is an 'ideal' situation, but that's not always possible unfortunately.

[andrewalston]

I have to say first that I have subscriptions to both. I put up with problems because it is the data that I want. As an IT professional, I can get by with all sorts of quirky systems.

Before committing to one or the other, check carefully what is available. Some county records offices have done deals with one or the other, but there are records which are available on both and for free on FamilySearch. Some areas have virtually nothing online. If there's an area which is important to you, ask on RootsChat for opinions.

FindMyPast's disaster when they rehashed the site to make it smartphone-friendly and changed the search method at the same time has faded from view. They have eventually got the search working, and as long as you search by dataset rather than their suggested "here are all the records we have. Now apply filter after filter to get things down to a manageable level", it works well.

I find FindMyPast a bit more responsive in their handling of problems. They do eventually correct transcription errors rather than leaving the bad version in place, and they don't demand that only those places in their incorrect gazetteer can possibly exist. When we found the 1939 register had all of Blackpool transcribed as Blackburn, it was dealt with in short order.

I have a feeling that Ancestry now have so much on the go that they are losing track of existing data. Maintenance of the databases is being skipped. The UK phone books are just one example; I've just emailed to tell them that their 1900 US Census is now missing over half of every source citation, which is a very serious problem for any non-frivolous researcher. When I complained a few weeks ago that the Page Number field had disappeared from the 1891 England census they just claimed that nobody ever used page numbers.

Your Mileage May Vary!

[ggrocott]

Thank you everyone for your replies, much food for thought. 

Much as I would like to subscribe to both sites it really isn't feasible so one or other it will have to be.

I realise that font seems to be a strange criteria to choose on but due to my particular, admittedly rather odd visual make up the new Ancestry font is almost impossible to work with for more than short periods.

Have to say I had a lovely day in Hertford Archives making use of FindMyPast, which also seems to have exclusive use of some of the Hertfordshire records and was impressed with both their records and search facilities.  Thankfully I did not get a headache.

My local library offers free use of Ancestry but not FindMyPast so when current subscription expires I will probably move to FindMyPast.