FamilySearch Introduces Searching on Largest Genealogy Websites - Post 3: Searching on Findmypast.com

On the FamilySearch Blog recently, Matt Wright wrote New Feature: Search Genealogy Records on the World's Largest Sites. 

On each profile in the FamilySearch Family Tree there is a box with links to FamilySearch, Ancestry, Findmypast and MyHeritage:

I wanted to see how this feature works, so I am going to use one of my tree persons, John Nicholas Brocke (1855-1938) (FSID L416-YCP) to see what records are found by each website.

I reviewed the search results on each site in:

*  FamilySearch Introduces Searching on Largest Genealogy Websites - Post 1: FamilySearch Matches(30 September 2015)


*  FamilySearch Introduces Searching on Largest Genealogy Websites - Post 2: Searching on Ancestry.com (1 October 2015)

1)  Here are the John Nicholas Brocke search results on Findmypast.com:

The search parameters transferred from FamilySearch included:

*  First names =  John Nicholas (with name variants)
*  Last name = Brocke (no name variants)
*  Birth year = 1955 (plus/minus 2 years)
*  Where = World
*  Location = Michigan

The default search from FamilySearch found only one match - for J. Nicholas Brocke in the 1870 U.S. Census.

2)  I removed the name "John" from the search but kept all other search terms the same, and there were 5 matches:

The five matches were:

#1:  1900 U.S. Census (for Nicholas Brocke)
#2:  1930 U.S. Census (for Nicholas Brocke)
#3:  1920 U.S. Census (for Nickolas Brocke)
#4:  1910 U.S. Census (for Niokales Brocke)
#5:  1870 U.S. Census (for J. Nicholas Brocke)

This search did not find a birth record, a baptism record, a marriage record, a death record, a burial record, or an 1880 U.S. Census record for Nicholas Brocke.

Obviously, any search depends on the information put into the search fields and the name variations used in the search algorithms, and the available record collections on the website.  There may be other records for this person on FamilySearch that have different name spellings, different birth information, etc.

I do think that FamilySearch should use last name name variants, and search for a death date and place, if known, on Findmypast.com in order to be comparable to the FamilySearch and Ancestry.com searches.

3)  I will review the search results for MyHeritage in the next post in this series.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/10/familysearch-introduces-searching-on_2.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.