Monday, May 13, 2013

First Look at Record Detective and Record Extraction Features on MyHeritage

I posted on Saturday about the new MyHeritage features - Record Extraction and Record Detective in MyHeritage To Announce Record Detective Feature.

You can see a short video about Record Detective here:


I had a chance last night to explore these features a bit more, and wanted to share my first look at them.

1)  From my MyHeritage home page, I clicked on the Family Tree button and the "Record Matches" link.  That opened the page with a list of all of the Record Collections that have provided Record Matches for the nearly 40,000 persons in my MyHeritage family tree:


2)  I decided to look at the 1900 United States Federal Census collection, which has 340 Record Matches.  Here is the top of the list (I chose to sort by "Confidence" in this case - I could also sort by First Name, Last Name, or Status):


3)  I chose to look at the Record Match in the 1900 Census for Julia A. Carringer (two screens below):



The screen above pertains to the 1900 U.S. Census record, and Julia A. Carringer is the wife of Thomas L. Carringer, the family residing in Greenville, Mercer County, Pennsylvania.

Note that there are two additional records in the "Related Records" section under the "Record Detective" heading.  These also pertain to Julia A. (--?--) Carringer - a Newspaper article and a 1910 U.s. census record for Thomas Carringer.

4)  I decided that this Julia A. Carringer is the same person as the Julia (--?--) Carringer in my family tree, so I clicked on the "Confirm" button.  A popup window appeared:


The popup window above says:

"Record Match confirmed.

"Great, this record was confirmed and the record was saved to Julia Carringer in your family tree.

"Next: you can now extract information from this record to your family tree."

5)  I clicked on the "Continue" button and saw the comparison of the information in the 1900 U.S. census record (on the left) with the information in my family tree (on the right) (two screens, a little overlap):



The "Record Extraction" occurs if I click on the double arrow between the two columns for each item that is offered.  In the case above, an "improved" first name, the residence date, the residence place, and the source citation were offered for Record Extraction.

6)  I clicked each one of them and saw the result (top of the page only):


As you can see, the information was added to the person profile for Julia A. Carringer in my MyHeritage family tree.

I was curious to see if the source citation was added, so I clicked on the "Add source citation" check box and also on the "Show" link beside it and saw that the source citation information on both the Record side and the family tree side opened.  I could edit the information in the Family Tree side (the right hand panel) if I desire.

7)  There is a light green "Save" button at the bottom of the screen above (not shown), and I clicked it and it took me to the Person Profile for Julia A. (--?--) Carringer:


The Person Profile shows that there are two Records for Julia - the 1900 U.s. census and a newspaper article.  I don't know what happened to the 1910 U.S. Census record that appeared in the screen in 3) above?

While I "Confirmed" the 1900 U.S. Census Record, I did not confirm the Newspaper match that was shown.  The Person Profile screen above shows both the 1900 census record and the Newspaper item as Confirmed (the green check mark).  My preference would be to be able to "Confirm" each record individually so that I have some control over my Record Matches and can minimize duplication and effort.

8)  Note that I could click on the household members in the 1900 U.S. Census record displayed and bring up the record information for that person.

However, I don't seem to be able to "Confirm" the record match or extract the information to my tree from the record.  When I click on the link for Thomas L. Carringer, it brings up his census information, but without a "Confirm" button.  If he is in the "Record Match" list for this database, I can find it and "Confirm" him that way, but that is a lot more work.  My preference would be to be able to "Confirm" other persons in a census household record by clicking on their linked name and being offered a "Confirm" button.  That way, you could do the whole family with a minimum number of clicks.

9)  I still need to explore the "Record Detective" feature - how it connects to other MyHeritage Trees and the "Record Matches" found from those other trees.  Unfortunately, Julia A. Carringer is not in anyone else's MyHeritage family tree.

I will have more to say about the "Record Extraction, " and "Record Detective" features, and the source citations,  in future posts.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/05/first-look-at-record-detective-and.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

Disclosure:  I have a complimentary PremiumPlus MyHeritage subscription and a complimentary Data subscription from MyHeritage, which I appreciate.  This does not affect my objectivity in writing about MyHeritage and its companion sites.

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