Page 1 of 1

Internet matches for alternate names

Posted: 02 Apr 2022 09:58
by ississi
Hi,
It seems to me that Internet Matches only pick up the first name you have for someone, not any alternative names you may have entered for them - eg only searches for William Allinson, not his 'alternatives' that I've added of William Allanson and William Allerson. Am I right? And if so, is it possible for it to be optionally expanded to search on the alternative names?
Many thanks,
Isabel

Re: Internet matches for alternate names

Posted: 02 Apr 2022 11:27
by tatewise
I'm not sure what the Internet Matches search criteria are in detail. They are not published.
Also, you can only search for people that appear in the Focus Window.

May I suggest you try the Lookup Missing Census Facts and Lookup Missing BMD Records plugins.
They allow you to choose who is included in the lookup and only those with missing facts are included.
They support searches in Ancestry, FindMyPast, FamilySearch and MyHeritage.
They automatically include 'variant' names so for William Allinson, variants such as Will Allanson and W Allerson are probably covered, but you can easily edit the search criteria if there are insufficient matches.

Re: Internet matches for alternate names

Posted: 02 Apr 2022 11:40
by ColeValleyGirl
The FindMyPastHints API is published and doesn't look as it it would easily support alternate names. The MyHeritage API is also published and is a bit richer, but again doesn't look as if it would support alternate spellings.

Re: Internet matches for alternate names

Posted: 02 Apr 2022 11:55
by tatewise
What I meant by not published is that FH does not explain what parameters are supplied to the API.
Presumably, it might be feasible for FH to supply Alternate Names via multiple calls to the API, but needs a program update.

Re: Internet matches for alternate names

Posted: 06 Apr 2022 08:31
by ississi
I'm guessing an optional looped call to the api with the different names and collation of the results into one page for the user to view.