As most readers know, I do all of my family tree data entry work in RootsMagic desktop family tree software, and I try to "mine" (meaning to dig out ancestral family information) the available genealogy record collections when I have the opportunity. I upload my RootsMagic family tree to Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch Family Tree, and Findmypast on an occasional basis.
Ancestry provides Record Hints for several persons in your Ancestry Member Tree every day, unless you change a profile in your tree, and then they provide more Hints for the changed profiles. But they don't provide every Hint for every profile all at one time.
MyHeritage is the only record provider that looks for Record Matches for all persons in your family tree at once, usually within a month of a new tree being uploaded. I much prefer that because I can organize my search for records and simplify my source citation creation in RootsMagic - I can use the same master source and just change the citation details.
I knew that MyHeritage had recently added the "1939 Register of England & Wales," and I know that the collection provides relation to head of household, birth dates, residences, marital status, and occupations for persons in the Index. I have quite a few English-born persons in my RootsMagic tree that were living in 1939, so this is a good opportunity to update their birth information using the MyHeritage 1939 collection. However, the MyHeritage collection does not provide the record image like Ancestry.com and Findmypast do.
1) When I opened my MyHeritage tree, I selected "Discoveries" and then "By Source" and then "Record Matches," then I scrolled down to where the "1939 Register of England & Wales" collection was:
The screen above shows me that I have 120 matches in the collection.
2) I clicked on the orange "Review 120 Matches" button for the collection:
The "pending match" page above provides information for all 120 of my matches, including what I have in my tree (on the left) and the information in the collection (on the right). It tells me what new information there is in the collection for each match.
3) I clicked on the first match on my list, and now can see more detail for the record, including all of the indexed information (two screen below) and source material:
Frankly, I really don't think that the actual 1939 Register record has this person's married surname in it...but it shows that for some reason. The information shown should be what's in the actual record. That should be corrected, in my humble opinion.
UPDATED: Reader Bill G. emailed me saying:
"I appreciate the benefit of MyHeritage having all the new records identified instead of the some now, some later in Ancestry. However Ancestry (and FindMyPast) have actual images of the 1939 records which I find always have some unique info that doesn't appear in indices.
"In the case of the 1939 register for example, you would have seen that Hebditch married name written in green next to the black original writing. I have also found interesting additional notes, and info etc. in the image that's not in the index. Plus I always prefer to have the image in my files vs index info when it's available.
"Perhaps a process would be to use MyHeritage to ID the tree names with 1939 connections, then search Ancestry or Find My Past to get to the actual record... Even if not already identified as hints, they are showing up in searches."
My thanks to Bill for correcting my statement about MyHeritage adding information to the profile that I thought wasn't there.
4) I clicked on the orange "Confirm Match" button to add information to my MyHeritage tree.
I can extract the 1939 Register information and save it to the profile in my MyHeritage tree.
5) I clicked on the "View profile" link on the left side and can see what I have for this profile already.
As you can see, the added information includes the parents and brother.
6) I added the 1939 Register information to my RootsMagic tree - as an event for the registry at the address in Exeter, and as a source for the birth date and for the registry event. I don't have a good model yet for the 1939 Registry, so I used the information that MyHeritage provided in the Census area of the record, and crafted this:
"1939 Register of England & Wales," indexed database, MyHeritage (http://www.myheritage.com), Exeter County Borough, Devon, Schedule 38, ED Letter Code WDBY, TNA Reference RG101/6757B/003/19, Piece 6757B, Item #3, Line 19, Margaret M. Mason entry.
That may be too much information, but a reader could certainly find the record.
I do wish that MyHeritage provided an
Evidence Explained quality source citation, but they don't. They provide the Census information shown above all run together
7) I did not add the parents and brother to my RootsMagic family tree. I could, but they are not my ancestors.
Well, that was fun. 119 more to go. I may not finish them all today.
Copyright (c) 2018, Randall J. Seaver
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