Ancestry vs Find My Past

[Hampshire Lass]

Like baggygenes, I also have both and find both sites to be necessary resources.

Sometimes for instance, they have different transcriptions for indecipherable names on a census. They also have different methods of searching available and the result of both of these facts is that if you have a record you just cannot find on one site, you can on the other. This enabled me only last night to find an elusive family on the 1841 and 1851 censuses and they were elusive simply because the name had been drastically mistranscribed.

Also the 1911 is better on FindMyPast and the military records are good.

Have you thought of www.thegenealogist.co.uk  that's excellent also.

Best wishes HL

[kiwihalfpint]

Like baggygenes, I also have both and find both sites to be necessary resources.

I have both as well, the last few days I have found that some of the census records are on one and not the other, sometimes they are on both. The 1851 had been eluding me for one family, and like HL had found the name had been mistranscribed as well. 

Cheers
KHP

[Doddie]

Thought that Candolim_Imp might be interested to know that according to the latest addition of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine there is going to be a release on Ancestry of Lancashire records  later in the year. I have't got the magazine to hand so cannot give any more details. It will be a bonus for me and many others I expect. My father's side of the family is Lancashire based so I hope to find some helpful information.

Regards

Doddie

[Candolim_Imp]

Excellent. They already have very good coverage of Lancs & Liverpool, but I'm always on the lookout for more!

[Hercule Poirot]

The search engine is far superior on Ancestry than Findmypast - you can't search by Christian name only on FindMyPast, they insist on a surname. The parish records on FindMyPast are a bit of a farce, in Wales they are only CinW records, if there, no non conformist records and no municipal cemeteries etc, it is a false claim they have Wales records, they don't.

The only database of use on FindMyPast is people leaving the UK pre 1960 and they don't have any USA Federal census like Ancestry, who also have a wealth of US State databases.

If I use FindMyPast I do have access but I don't pay for it myself

[smudwhisk]

The search engine is far superior on Ancestry than Findmypast - you can't search by Christian name only on FindMyPast, they insist on a surname.

You can search on FindMyPast with first name only as I have done this with census records and baptisms etc.  I think in the past it was restricted to having a surname but they seem to have tweaked the search engines a little recently.  That said, it is still more limited than on ancestry, particularly when looking for baptisms/marriages/burials.  Hopefully they may take notice and allow searches to include partners or parents.

As to Hercule Poirot's comment about the FindMyPast Wales collection not be correct as it doesn't include non-conformist or cemetery records, to be honest the same could be said for some of ancestry's collections as the so-called London collection from the LMA doesn't include Westminster parishes apart from BTs, the same with some Surrey parishes, albeit that Surrey PRs are apparently due on ancestry next year.

I have ancestry, FindMyPast and thegenealogist subscriptions but all for particular reasons.  I tend to use ancestry the most since it is more versatile but often have to dip into FindMyPast for census entries that I can't find on ancestry.  The newer data sets of parish regsiters on FindMyPast have become useful, but that's because they cover the counties I am researching in.  As for thegenealogist, well I only use it for non-conformist registers and the PCC Wills they have been digitising from microfilm copies from the NA.  Just wish they would hurry up and digitise some more since it's been stuck with 1660 (apart from a few odd years) as the earliest for well over a year now.  Saves having to pay £3.50 per time from the NA.

[JenB]

- you can't search by Christian name only on FindMyPast, they insist on a surname.

Not entirely correct I'm afraid - you can search FindMyPast by Christian name only (at least you can on the censuses) - I've just been doing so 

[Hercule Poirot]

I will have to disagree what last but one poster stated about Christian names search.

Perhaps he / she would like to do a Birth, Marriage and Death search only using a Christian name, a point of note on FindMyPast is 2 little asterisks which is INFORMATION REQUIRED.

Ancestry lets you do a Christian name only search, and nobody, and I mean nobody, FindMyPast, GR etc etc will allow such a search.

A lot of us cannot afford multiple memberships until we win the lottery, although I am quite happy to have my monthly non contracted world wide membership with Ancestry

[smudwhisk]

I will have to disagree what last but one poster stated about Christian names search.

Perhaps he / she would like to do a Birth, Marriage and Death search only using a Christian name, a point of note on FindMyPast is 2 little asterisks which is INFORMATION REQUIRED.

As per my previous post, I said baptisms et al, these are NOT the BMD indexes Hercule Poirot has mentioned.

As for having three subscriptions, well depends what you prefer to spend your money on doesn't it (in any case cost is split between two of us).