Genealogy Chat

Hi

I am thinking of moving to FMP from Ancestry.....what are everyone's views on the difference between FMP & Ancestry? Also is FMP a monthly subscriptin?

Lesley

I currently only have FMP for the 1911 census but as Ancestry are transcribing more than I will probably not renew on FMP. Was useful for the overseas BMD's.

I use Ancestry a lot for the London Marriages and Baptisms.

So at the moment Ancestry suits me better.

It all comes down to what records you are more likely to need for your research

I am half/half................my father's side are Londoners and my mothers side are Yorkshire.........I have found the London Records on Ancestry fabulous for my research. I think its always helpful to get a difference of opinion x

Lesley, I would second DF's comments regarding the London records. They are invaluable if you have London ancestors. As for the 1911 Census, they currently have around 20 counties transcribed BUT these transriptions are awful. These will doubtless improve over time, but for the moment it's a bit of a challenge.
As for Yorkshire, I don't have any direct knowledge, so I did a (very unscientific) test.
Searching for baptism records for Smith in Yorkshire on FMP says it has 10,415 records, whilst Ancestry claims 32,029 in West Yorkshire alone from 1813 onwards.
As I said, very unscientific and total numbers are irrelivent if your rellies pop up in the smaller number (!) but just an indication.

I use both and agree with DF, records found on one site are not picked up by the other and vice versa. FMP used to have a great search engine, but it has not been so great lately. Records I had previously found often do not now show up. I recently found a 1911 census on Ancestry that is not picked up on FMP or Genes, but a search by address and references shows it is there with the names written clearly. I do find FMP is more thorough at checking reported transcription errors and correcting them while Ancestry only shows the change as a suggestion, leaving the original error in place. FMP and Genes now have mostly the same records and use the same search engine because they are both owned by same company, but I prefer FMP and seldom use Genes any more.

You could try a 14 day trial to find my past to see what you think of the records offered in it.

Whatever you prefer and what best suits your research interests.

Of course you will find differences in transcriptions, you only need a 5% error rate (and that is exceptionally good.....!) to see that this equates to tens of thousands of discrepancies.

Interestingly I have found no real problems with the Ancestry 1911 transcriptions. I have looked up nearly a hundred so far and virtually all are spot on. Most of the errors I have seen are with what was written down on the census i.e. George spelled as Gorge.....!

I think that Ancestrry and FindmyPast have somewhat different philosophies.
Ancestry tend to build their databases through their own means whilst much of the FMP information appears to have been bought in.
I remember a few years back when The Federation of Family History Societies had an On Line service - with many Databases from its members and reasonable charges of about 5p to view a record.
The website closed and most records were transferred to FMP who greatly increased the charges.
Fortunate for me, I had already extracted most of the information I required.
I see FMP also hvve a copy of Boyds' Marriage Index

Ancestry's claims can be a little optimistic. I have had two subscriptions with Ancestry On the first occasion, I gathered all the information they had to offer and cancelled when I found that I was rarely visiting any more. Earlier this year I took out a second subscription specifically to check out the London Parish records. Whilst I was, in general, pleased with what was available and was able to unblock some lines, I did find that the transcriptions were by no means complete and several "key" Parishes were missing. In particular, these included St Giles in the Fields and St James Westminster for the late 1700s

For the most part, I can manage quite well just using Free information and then viewing the originals where possible. I will probably dip back in at some stage once I have sufficient queries to justify.