There are times when I just want to "hunt" for records rather than write a blog post or watch a webinar. One of the most "fun" things to do is to find "Record Matches" on MyHeritage for my "tree people."
I have a large family tree on MyHeritage (it's old - October 2018) which has about 55,000 profiles. But many of the profiles need additional information and that's where the MyHeritage "Record Matches" comes in - MyHeritage looks at every person in my family tree and finds records in their record collections that may apply to my tree people. Then they present those Record Matches by record collection. Let me show you what I mean (obviously, you have to have a MyHeritage tree and a Data subscription to do this).
On the MyHeritage home page, select "Discoveries" and then "Matches by Source."
The "Matches by Source" screen lists MyHeritage record collections by the number of matches in each collection. Each match is for a person in my MyHeritage tree. As you can see, I have over 39,000 matches for my tree people in the FamilySearch Family Tree.
I was searching for a record collection that I have not reviewed recently. Further down the list I saw:
Ah, Billion Graves! I haven't mined that collection for a long time - maybe never. It has 1,073 matches! I clicked on the orange button and saw the list:
MyHeritage presents what is in my tree and the record that they think matches my person with the record details, and a link to "Review match." While the first match listed seems to have the correct first name, birth year and spouse's name, after review I determined that this was not the correct tree person for the Billion Graves record. I can click on the orange "Review match" button and reject this match.
Note that there is a dropdown menu on the top right - the default to sort the match list by is "Value" (perhaps meaning the record that provides the most new information for the tree person?) and the other sort options are "First name," "Last name" and "Relation." I kept the sort as by "Value."
Further down the match list is this:
After reviewing my tree information, I determined that the Billion Graves memorial for Bertha E. Maricle applied to my tree person Bertha Wathen to married Marshall Earl Maricle.
I clicked on the "Review match" button and saw the record summary for this record:
There is a link to "View full record on BillionGraves.com" so I clicked on it and saw:
Yep, that's is certainly Bertha E. (Wathen) Maricle! I can search for more information about Bertha on MyHeritage and other record providers.
I want to add this information to my MyHeritage profile for Bertha. Back on the MyHeritage screen, I clicked on the orange "Confirm Match" button and was able to add the new and improved information to the tree profile for Bertha Wathen:
After extracting the information from the record into the MyHeritage profile, I clicked on the orange "Save to tree" button at the bottom of the image above. The Review screen now shows my profile for Bertha has been updated:
I also added the new information to my RootsMagic profile for Bertha Wathen, and added a source citation to the Billion Graves site for her. The source citation is:
Billion Graves, indexed database and digital images (http://billiongraves.com : accessed 26 October 2020), Boone Cemetery, Albion, Nebr., Bertha E. Maricle memorial #23416305.
I spent 90 minutes in this MyHeritage record collection last night and added meaningful information to about 20 of my tree people. Of course, a few of the Record Matches were not for the right tree person, and many were for tree persons for whom I already had birth, death and burial information.
Bottom line - I had lots of genealogy fun! And improved my MyHeritage tree and my RootsMagic database in the process. Just what I needed after a full day of genealogy and real life and no World Series game (although I did watch some of the football game).
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Disclosure: I receive a complimentary subscription to MyHeritage, and have received other material consideration in past years. I uploaded my autosomal DNA raw data to their DNA product. This does not affect my objective analysis of MyHeritage products and services.
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Copyright (c) 2020, Randall J. Seaver
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