* FH 6.2 - FindMyPast Hints

[gerrynuk]

Thank you to both Calico Pie and FindMyPast for this upgrade and the ability to get hints from FindMyPast.

One little issue, however, which is that I only have a UK sub for FindMyPast but it is throwing up USA hints. I know these (in a particular case) are not relating to my ancestor but I cannot mark them as Rejected and it wants me to take out a World Wide sub.

Is there any way of either disabling hints that are not included in my sub or of simply rejecting them?

[tatewise]

On a related theme, I do have a FMP subscription account for UK, and can log into it, but there are no buttons to Confirm/Accept or Reject a match as described in the FH Help page for Preferences Dialog: Internet Data Matches.

When the blue Review> button is clicked, and I am logged in, the matching document details are displayed, but no buttons. So the Focus Window hints remain indefinitely.

Now, after having tried many attempts, there is a blue banner across the bottom of the extrenal browser web page asking Is this record a match? with No, reject and Yes, accept options. But it has taken a very long time of repeat attempts before that happened. It still does not appear in the FH Web Search Window.

BTW: The Sign In with Facebook blue link is inoperative in the FH Web Search Window but works OK in external Firefox browser.

N.B. I am currently using Windows Vista so IE browser used by FH is Version 9.

[delwoodman]

Mike:

I also have a UK FMP subscription but am finding that the accept and reject buttons are present when review is pressed and work as intended.

Be interesting to see what others are finding.

Derek

[delwoodman]

Mike:

Apologies for incomplete reading of your post. I am experiencing the same as you report in your final paragraph except that I got this on first attempt.

Derek

[ColeValleyGirl]

I have a UK FMP subscription -- when I click on the hints count in the focus window I get a page that looks like this (no need to log in)

Hints App 2016-04-03 15-27-23.png (205.49 KiB) Viewed 14731 times

I can then review each hint and confirm or reject:

findmypast.co.uk 2016-04-03 15-31-13.png (73.31 KiB) Viewed 14730 times

[tatewise]

Yes Helen, I get that too, but when I click Review> then FMP demands that I Sign In/Register before offering any more. Are you sure you are not already logged in by default?

Is it the same in the FH internal Web Search Window?

[ColeValleyGirl]

If I'm logged out of FMP when I try to review I'm asked to log-in (not unreasonable as it shows you the whole record when you review it, unlike -- from memory -- MyHeritage).

The internal FH Web Search windows gives me a blank window (I've had similar problems in the past which is why I don't use it).

[tatewise]

Have you tried the Write Reg IE Shell Version Plugin that adjusts the IE Version used by FH in its Web Search Window?

Going back to the original posting by Gerry, the process would suggest that there is no way to Accept/Reject a hint in a FMP collection for which you do not have a subscription.

[ColeValleyGirl]

1. I've decided I prefer to use an external browser window, as it allows me to arrange apps better on the screen.
2. Agree -- looks like you need to have a subscription to accept/reject FMP hints. (Annoying if you are getting hints for a region you don't have a subscription for).

[gerrynuk]

...
2. Agree -- looks like you need to have a subscription to accept/reject FMP hints. (Annoying if you are getting hints for a region you don't have a subscription for).

Very annoying when you know they aren't hints that are relevant to your family and there seems to be no way to get rid of them.

[gerrynuk]

Two more issues - perhaps I'm doing something wrong:

1) There is no way I can get drag and drop to work to add the record to my tree and copy and paste is greyed out. What are you actually highlighting to copy anyway?

2) When using an external browser, if the person to whom the matches are supposed to relate is not in focus then they are not made the focus. (Sorry, not sure what the correct terminology is here.) For example, if you are looking at the hints for children then the parents will remain in focus. It works correctly when using the internal browser option.

[tatewise]

1) See how_to:copy_paste_and_drag_drop|> Copy & Paste and Drag & Drop. The techniques are different depending on whether some text or an image is involved. Also the FH internal Web Search Window is more likely to support Drag & Drop than an External Web Browser window. Although I could still not drag images from FMP.

2) Yes, that is correct, because FH has no way of knowing what is happening in an external window. Use the FH internal Web Search Window to enable the auto-Focus feature. It is the same for both FMP and MyHeritage hints.

So you must open the window you want to drag & drop to, beforehand. That even applies with auto-Focus, because only the Main tab is selected and that is not likely what you want. In fact it is more likely to be a Source record Property Box you want, or even an AS window.

[gerrynuk]

1) See how_to:copy_paste_and_drag_drop|> Copy & Paste and Drag & Drop. The techniques are different depending on whether some text or an image is involved. Also the FH internal Web Search Window is more likely to support Drag & Drop than an External Web Browser window. Although I could still not drag images from FMP.
...

What is the technique for dragging text from a FMP window to update an ancestor record, please? I couldn't select anything useful (only all or part of the HTML code behind the page) and copy and paste were disabled. The Calico Pie illustration of a FMP page in their release notes doesn't include an image (it looks like a transcript) but when I try to follow the notes there doesn't seem to be anything draggable there. Calico Pie gives the impression that by some "magical" means, dragging and dropping from the FMP hint page and using the auto citation facility will somehow update an ancestor record.

[tatewise]

I find that for FMP the transcript text must be selected, i.e. turned blue, using the standard ways of selecting text in any Windows application, and then the drag & drop and copy & paste options are enabled.

Calico Pie do not mention FMP images and I could not drag or copy them, so they must be downloaded first.

Calico Pie don't imply any magic. They only talk about drag or copy text to save typing it. Everything else they mention are the standard techniques for creating Source Citations, such as using the Automatic Source Citations pane. Maybe you are unfamiliar with that auto-citation feature. However, to recap, there is no magic process, you must create Source Citations the same way as before. The drag and copy feature just saves typing text transcripts, and that has existed a long time for manually researched web pages. The primary new feature is the FMP automatic hints.

See http://www.family-historian.co.uk/fh-ad ... findmypast
and http://www.family-historian.co.uk/aidm Automatic Internet Data Matching.

[Shiriki]

Good news that Family Historian can now link and obtain hints from FindMyPast…….even better would be a percentage reduction in subscription similar to that one can obtain from MyHeritage.....(hint hint).

Shiriki

[brianlummis]

I am sure that the hints will be very helpful when adding a new individual but at the moment I am finding that the majority of the hints are for facts that are already recorded. It would be useful to me if it was possible on the summary page of the hints if I could tick each one that I am happy to accept or reject without having to go to the detail page.

There are also obvious rejections like those hints for events that have taken place after a death where you have the death certificate and it would be a great time saver to be able to clear the "unwanted" hints out of the way without having to go to the details page.

[jmurphy]

There are also obvious rejections like those hints for events that have taken place after a death where you have the death certificate and it would be a great time saver to be able to clear the "unwanted" hints out of the way without having to go to the details page.

Getting search results or hints after a death date is one of the things that used to annoy me, too -- but if a program or search form does have a filter to remove those results, it has to be something that can be turned on and off.

Otherwise you miss probate records, applications for military gravestones, the mention of parents' names in children's death records, etc. -- all of the things where someone's name might appear in records after their death.

Last night I discovered that I had the wrong date of death for one of the women in my database -- I had 'penciled in' a date from a death index that actually belonged to her infant daughter. She died four years later. If I had been searching for a burial record with a hard-and-fast death date and nothing afterwards, I would have missed the record I was looking for.

So sometimes the obvious rejections aren't as obvious as they seem.

[gerrynuk]

I find that for FMP the transcript text must be selected, i.e. turned blue, using the standard ways of selecting text in any Windows application, and then the drag & drop and copy & paste options are enabled.

Where do you drag and drop the text to? I have clearly misunderstood what the point of this exercise is. I thought the point of it was to add citations to records, such as a Date of Birth. In most cases I already have the date entered (such as Q4 1910 or 1 April 1865) - which is probably why FMP has found a hint/match - but may not yet have added a citation (I won't go into why) so when FMP comes up with hints that match a date I have already entered (for example) I assumed (as a result of reading Calico Pie's release) that all that I needed to do was drag the "hint" to the date box and it would add the citation automatically.

Calico Pie do not mention FMP images and I could not drag or copy them, so they must be downloaded first.

That's what I have always done.

Calico Pie don't imply any magic. They only talk about drag or copy text to save typing it. Everything else they mention are the standard techniques for creating Source Citations, such as using the Automatic Source Citations pane. Maybe you are unfamiliar with that auto-citation feature. However, to recap, there is no magic process, you must create Source Citations the same way as before. The drag and copy feature just saves typing text transcripts, and that has existed a long time for manually researched web pages. The primary new feature is the FMP automatic hints.

Thanks. I thought I understood auto-citations and have used them, although as I use AS for most of the time for adding images and citations I don't have much use for auto-citations.

As I state above, it really isn't clear, to me at least, where you are supposed drag all or part of pageful of text. I did manage as an experiment to drag some text into a Note and also a Date box but it contained so many non-printing characters that it it was really not useful. The following is a typical "hint" produced by FMP and dragging even part of the page just yielded text and non-printing characters.

Screen Shot 2016-04-04 at 21.27.46.png (55.16 KiB) Viewed 14390 times

Dragging the name fields into the FH name field, for example, produces
"First name(s)
JANE

Last name
BROWN"
but all on one line, which is not helpful.

[gerrynuk]

...
Going back to the original posting by Gerry, the process would suggest that there is no way to Accept/Reject a hint in a FMP collection for which you do not have a subscription.

If this is the case then this is a serious problem. I do not need hints from foreign record sets for ancestors who spent the whole of their lives in the UK. I already have a world-wide sub to Ancestry and do not need/cannot afford to pay FMP for a world-wide sub. So I would like to suggest that it should be possible to turn off hints that are not covered by my subscription and/or be able to reject such hints.

[PeterR]

In Preferences (via the Tools menu) select Internet Data Matches. There you can use Settings… to Disable whichever Provider you don't want.

[tatewise]

Peter, you misunderstand. Gerry does not want to disable a provider (FindMyPast, MyHeritage). He wants to Reject hints from FindMyPast, but they are for say USA records, and he only has a UK records subscription. So he cannot gain access to the USA records to Reject them.

[gerrynuk]

Thank you , Mike.

[tatewise]

Gerry, did you read and digest how_to:copy_paste_and_drag_drop|> Copy & Paste and Drag & Drop?
Do you understand the difference between short text fields, and long text fields that allow multiple lines?

Please relax and consider; there is no magic going on; just a shortcut method of entering text into FH.
If you cannot enter multi-line text into a field, then drag & drop is not magically going to make that happen.

As the Knowledge Base says, you cannot paste or drop or edit or create multi-line text in a short text field such as a Name field. You can only get multiple lines into a long text field such as a Note or Text From Source.

No, there is no magic automatic Source Citation feature via 'hints' and drag & drop.

In the past I suspect you would have used copy & paste to copy a transcript from FMP to the Text From Source field in a new Source record. FH V6.0 simply added drag & drop as just another way of doing the same thing. Then you would create Citations that linked to that Source record. Alternatively, you could use the Automatic Source Citations pane or Ancestral Sources to create the Source record, but drag & drop is just a quick way of entering the transcript into a text field.

The Internet Data Matches feature is quite separate from all the above, and does not change how any of it works. It simply offers you automatic 'hints' to online records, instead of you searching for them manually. Thereafter, the process of adding Source Citations is essentially the same as it has been for years.

[AdrianBruce]

Do we know how (or even if) FH determines where to look in FMP? I ask because I get quite annoyed with FMP when I log on and enter a query. I only have a UK subs and sometimes it puts me into searching the UK collections (fine!) but sometimes it gives me the World collections. All from the same URL and sign-on. In the latter case of World collections, I've invariably hit <enter> before realising I'm going to get dozens of useless responses.

I bring this up just in case Calico Pie programmed and tested this with a UK only subs and it looked sensibly at the UK collections. And now FMP's suddenly deciding to give the logon the useless access to World?

[tatewise]

Adrian, you are missing several points.

Firstly, I believe the FH 'hints' are derived from a FREE Search that anyone can perform without any subscription, and that is why they are World Wide. There is no Sign In required to get 'hints' on either FindMyPast or MyHeritage.

There are four different subscriptions for the four regions of Britain/UK, Ireland, USA/Canada, and Australia/New Zealand, plus a World Wide subscription that covers them all. Also a few records are free, so sometimes a World Wide search is useful even without a World Wide subscription.

FH does not know what subscription you have, and nor does FindMyPast until you Sign In. So the 'hints' have to be World Wide to satisfy all possible users. Also, if there are lots of 'hints' for a region you don't have a subscription for, then you might choose to subscribe, but if they were excluded, how could you make that decision?

There would need to be another Internet Data Matches setting to select the subscription in order to restrict the 'hints', or there must be a way of Rejecting 'hints' without a Sign In.