It took some time for my Record Hints to show up on my Findmypast tree, but I now have 69,118 Hints to deal with. After extensive review, I have found that the Findmypast Hints for almost all of my American ancestral families are from records that I already have found from years of research on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch, but many of the Hints for my English-born ancestral families are new to me.
I've chosen to "mine" these Findmypast Hints for my English ancestral families from the 19th century. In many cases, they are 5th cousins or closer, so I may have some of their descendants show up as a DNA Match on one or more of the DNA test and analysis services. Consequently, I want to extend these families into the 20th century if I can.
Here is the process for working with Findmypast Hints, using one of the descendants of one of my ancestral families:
1) On the Findmypast Hints page, I saw that I had 69,118 Hints (in light gray next to the word "hints" in green):
All of the Hints, seemingly in a random list of hints for all of the individuals in my tree, are shown on the screen above. I can scroll down and find more if I care to - probably all 69,000 of them. I judged that was probably a waste of time!
2) I clicked on the first one for Frank J. Richman (born 1884) - he is a 3rd cousin once removed, so his children would be my 4th cousins - this is someone I need to do more research on. Note that I could have got to this same page from the Family Tree page or from a search for the person):
There are four Hints for my cousin, Frank - the 1939 Register, the 1911 Census, the 1901 Census and an 1884 Birth or baptism record. If these are for the right person, I want to add this information, and in the process I may find descendants.
3) I clicked on the first Hint - the one for the 1939 Register. I know that this record has a birth date, an occupation in 1939, and an address for their location in 1939 for persons in the family:
At the top of this page is the person's name and information from the record (the 1939 Register) and from my FMP tree. This looks like it's the same person to me. At the bottom of the page above, the question in white on blue is "Are these the same people?" I think so, so I'm going to click on the button for "Yes, next step."
4) I clicked on the "Yes, next step" button, and saw the information from the record and from my tree side-by-side. I can choose to "Update all" or add data items one at a time to my FMP person using the blue right arrow between the two columns:
I scrolled down and noted that there was a wife and a son for Frank Richman in the family unit in the 1939 Register record. I selected the items I wanted to add to the person in my FMP tree. I chose the birth date, occupation and 1939 Register address for all of the persons in the record comparison. Here is a screen shot of the information I'm adding or updating to the FMP tree persons:
5) I clicked on the "Save changes" button at the bottom of the screen above. I could have chosen to "Skip merging" and gone back to the list of Hints if this record did not apply to the FMP tree person.
A "last chance" screen appeared saying "Update tree, you are about to update your tree."
6) I clicked on the blue "Update my tree" button on the screen above, and went back to my FMP tree. The wife and son are now added to my FMP tree:
7) There are three more Hints for cousin Frank that I need to review and accept - perhaps he and Mary had more children than Alfred born in 1918 - the 1901 and 1911 census records may provide their names Or not! Perhaps those children have families who are my cousins also!
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Copyright (c) 2017, Randall J. Seaver
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