Thursday, February 25, 2016

MyHeritage Announces "Record Detective II" Technology - And I Test It Out

The MyHeritage Blog posted "Introducing Record Detective II" today.


The description of the earlier Record Detective technology was that it was "records found in MyHeritage SuperSearch™ automatically point to additional records and family tree profiles relating to the same person."  The example given was that the Record Detective found what seemed to be the same person in MyHeritage Trees, and if they found that those trees had attached records, they made that a match on the Record Detective list.  In other words, this was a "Record 1 to person A to Person B to Record 2" search.

The Record Detective II technology is different - if you search for a person (or have a Record Match for a person), then SuperSearch searches all of the records on MyHeritage for the person based on the indexed information for the record found in your search.  In other words, it is a "Record 1 to Record 2" search, eliminating the Person to Person matches and links.  

Read the entire blog post - there are 7 examples of Record Detective II matches.  The summary says:

"Thanks to Record Detective™ II, a record you've found on MyHeritage can effortlessly open the door to many more records about the same person. These records may come from totally different collection types, and they may originate from another part of the world you didn't expect. The technology helps you by saving you time and revealing new information you may never have found on your own."

The blog post notes that over 2.2 billion additional matches in the MyHeritage system.  I'm not sure what this means - did they search for all person profiles in the MyHeritage trees?  

I did a search on MyHeritage for Isaac Seaver (exact names, 1823-1901), limiting results to born 1821-1825 in Massachusetts (flexible), and Massachusetts (flexible) in the Residence field.



There were 22 results for:

*  12 MyHeritage Trees
*  1850 U.S. Census
*  1860 U.S. Census
*  1870 U.S. Census
*  1880 U.S. Census
*  1900 U.S. Census
*  Geni World Tree
*  WikiTree
*  2 Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915 (both for his third wife)
*  1 Search Connect

All of the matches are correct.  Strangely, there was no match for FamilySearch Family Tree.

I clicked on the 1900 U.S. Census record, and scrolled down to the bottom of the page:


There were no Record Detective matches for this record.  I wonder if it is because there are no other family members on the record, except for a wife whose first name was enumerated incorrectly.

I tried the 1880 U.S. census match, and at the bottom of the page, I saw this (it took several seconds for the Record Detective matches to appear):


There are 15 Record Detective results, for:

*  FamilySearch Family Tree
*  Geni World Tree
*  WikiTree
*  2 Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915 (both for his third wife)
*  1860 U.S. Census
*  Fitchburg Sentinel newspaper article
*  4 records for his daughter, Ellen Seaver
*  3 records for his wife, Lucretia Seaver (1860, 1870, FSFT)
*  1870 U.S. Census

It did not find the 1850 and 1900 U.S. Census records for some reason.

The 1870 U.S. Census record had 32 Record Detective matches  (the other 17 are records for family members).

The 1860 U.S. Census record had 29 Record Detective matches (the other 14 are records for family members).

The 1850 U.S. Census record had 3 Record Detective matches, none of them Isaac Seaver (he was a boarder).

This is just one case, with one set of search criteria, but I think it is instructive.  The Record Detective found a different number of matches for each record, and in no case did it find all of the records found in the Search for Isaac Seaver.

A different set of search criteria may result in all of the records being found, and more.  Obviously, MyHeritage has a specific set of record collections, so I might get different search results on another website.

I like that the Record Detective finds other records for relatives who are on the record found in the search.

===========================================



Copyright (c) 2016, 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.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.


No comments: