* Find My Past introduces record hints

[jmurphy]

Randy Seaver posted an item on his blog Genea-Musings yesterday, FindMyPast Introduces Hints in Family Trees.

The information about the beta Hints can be found here: http://www.findmypast.co.uk/hints

In the comments, Phil Moir. the Technical Lead on the Findmypast Family Tree team adds:

"I thought your readers would be keen to know that the Hints feature is not restricted to subscribed users, and is actually available to all users with a tree. Even better, the review and merge options are also not restricted, so the information that is normally available through record search results can be applied to your tree using the same simple review and merge format.

"At the moment the hints are generated for a person as you create and edit that person (or spouses) , but the feature will continue to grow and expand throughout 2015. Hopefully it'll give a lot of people something new to try out and enjoy over the holiday period. "

I have a love-hate relationship with hints, so I have mixed feelings about this. As I said in one of the other threads, if I had been able to ask Santa, I would have wished for hints from Find My Past in Family Historian 6 instead of My Heritage. I guess this is the next best thing, but now if I want hints, I have to put up a tree on Find My Past. To their credit, the trees are private by default.

[Valkrider]

Jan

I agree I would have preferred this to Family Heritage but it depends on their API whether it is possible of course.

I do like the record hints on Ancestry when you find someone in a census for instance the suggested other census, BMD etc. can be really useful.

I will have to look into the FMP offering to see how it copes with Surname Studies as to whether it will offer options for unlinked individuals. I will try it with one of my small countries records.

[jmurphy]

Colin --

When hints work, they can be wonderful. I remember once when a brand new collection came online at Ancestry that I was unaware of (delayed birth records), and the hint alerted me that there were records for my family in that collection. It was great. Since then, Ancestry has changed the hint algorithm, so it no longer searches smaller collections like that.

No criticism of Calico Pie is intended, of course. I understand the developers are constrained by the APIs.

[Pgmoir]

Thanks for your interest in the new hints feature on Findmypast. I would be really keen to hear any feedback, especially in connection with the surname studies work. This is just the start of our work on hints, and hints are only generated based on adding and editing at the moment. GEDCOM imports are limited in how many people get hints. Regards Phil Moir, Technical Lead Findmypast Family Tree team

[jmurphy]

Hello, Phil, and welcome to FHUG!

It's early days on the hints yet, since I've barely started filling in a tree.

I'll post a sample that was waiting for me this morning so others here can see what I got.

I have a person on my tree named Alfred Clarke. I have gathered a lot of information about him on Find My Past already which has not yet been entered on my tree. I seeded the tree with the following estimates:

• born around 1840 in Brighton, Sussex (according to various census records)
• married Emily Knowles
• had a son Alfred R around 1870

The hints are:

• Alfred Clarke 1930 Brighton, Sussex, England England & Wales deaths 1837-2007 relevance 92
• Alfred F S Clarke 1917 Battle, Sussex, England England & Wales deaths 1837-2007 relevance 90
• Alfred William Clarke 1845 Great Britain England Births & Baptisms 1538-1975 relevance 78
• Alfred Clarke 1840 Depwade, Norfolk, England England & Wales births 1837-2006 relevance 78
• Alfred Clarke 1840 Loughborough, Leicestershire, England England & Wales births 1837-2006 relevance 78

Since my tree doesn't yet 'know' that Alfred served in India and that the family lived in Devon after their return from India, a suggestion of a death record in Brighton seems quite reasonable. (Assuming that my identifications are correct, 'my' Alfred died in Plymouth in 1910.)

One thing that annoys me about Ancestry's hint system is that it is not easy to get information about how the hints are generated, except to say that the hints come from the most popular collections, and not the small, lesser-known data sets that hints would actually be useful for. So it pleases me to see that the Find My Past hints are marked with a relevance score, even though (at this writing) I don't know how that score was arrived at.

It will be very interesting to see how the hints change as information is added to the tree. Thanks so much for your attention.

[Pgmoir]

Hi jmurphy,

Glad to hear you gave the hints a go. The case you gave was quite a challenge since it dates from only just after regular BMDs started, so the best hope if nothing found for a birth would be from parish records. We don't have full coverage of uk with parish records so it can be hit and miss. I started with just the name, and initially got no hints. This is not surprising, as one of the key choices we made with delivering hints was not to make suggestions when there are too many matches and not to make suggestions below a certain relevancy. we are trying to keep them as accurate as possible. I added date and got three hints. I did some manual searching for his birth and could not find anything that matching 1840 and Brighton, so was expecting to get anything for hints for birth. I chose to add Emily as a spouse next. This gave me a hint for a marriage 1869 in Woolwich? This could be feasible for two reasons, 1) you mention child born 1870 so pretty close 2) Woolwich being dockyard and Military academy, this could have been en route to serving in India. I added son, and date, and one of the hints was London, in fact this was the only 1870 birth for Alfred R Clarke. It's very hard to be accurate with these at all, as we get no mothers maiden name. What you could hope for is census hints. Unfortunately we're only doing BMD at the moment, but Census hints will be coming.

I did find the 1891 census.

I presume this is the correct family, Alfred head born Brighton, Emily from Devon, some kids born East Indies, some born Devon. Let's hope that this would come up as a hint when Census hints arrive

Let me know if the marriage and other assumptions are correct. Was there any records you've found on FMP that you would have expected.

Phil

[jmurphy]

Phil --

I'm impressed! I have found quite a few records on Find My Past, but I haven't attached them all yet because the tree system is new, and I was using FMP before on a 1-month sub. (The major records found elsewhere are from the National Probate Calendar -- I would love to see this record group added to FMP.)

Standard disclaimer -- these are the records which I think belong to the family -- all these events are earlier than the information that was passed down via the family.

The starting point for my research was the 1871 Census RG10 / 2099 / 68 / 10 with Emily Clarke b 1847 in Devon with her son Alfred R Clarke b 1870 in Ireland, enumerated in the household of Emily's father Robert Knowles in Slapton (near Kingsbridge in South Devon). Robert Knowles is in my husband's direct line.

Alfred and Emily were married in 24 Jan 1869 in Woolwich, according to Alfred's military records (he is in the Royal Artillery). I found his attestation from 1858 (British Army Service Records 1760-1915 / chelsea pensioners british army service records 1760-1913 / Box 1778 / Box Record Number 51).

The family was on the way back from India on Census Day in 1881, but I found some of the older children shortly thereafter in Slapton, in the National School Admissions Registers (my favorite set of records that I've used on FMP so far -- they are fabulous!).

The 1891 Census record RG12 / 1725 / 24 / 41 has the family in Plymouth, as does the 1901 Census RG13 / 2094 / 86 / 37.

The National Probate Calendar gives Emily's death date as 20 Mar 1904; Alfred's military records have a death date of 8 Oct 1910. I don't seem to have a burial record for Alfred or Emily yet, but I have Emily's baptism -- Slapton is one of the parishes where FMP has baptism records, and I have found baptisms for several generations of the Knowles family members there.

I also have baptisms for some of the Clarke children in India, birth registrations from the GRO Regimental records, and Army Service records for the sons who followed their father's career and also served in the Royal Artillery.

I understand that everyone wants the usual BMD / Census combination to provide the backbone for everything, but I most enjoy looking at the other records on FMP that fill in the picture, like the military records and the school records. The school registers are especially rich because they provide the birth date for the children, say which schools the children came from before entering the current school, and sometimes give information that a family has left the parish.

I took advantage of the generous holiday offer and got a 1-year sub, so I'll have more leisure to add things to a tree now. I very much appreciate your care about providing quality hints.

Thanks again for your attention.

Edited to add: putting in the dates for the marriage and death from the records mentioned above resulted in new hints for Alfred -- I have now moved these into the 'Maybe' list:

Alfred Clarke 1910 Plymouth, Devon, England England & Wales deaths 1837-2007 relevance 94

and

Alfred Clarke 1869 Woolwich, London, England England & Wales marriages 1837-2008 relevance 76

I have seven new hints for Emily Knowles that I haven't reviewed yet.

[jmurphy]

Hints for Emily with the relevance score at the end:

• Type Name Event Year Place Record Set Relevance
• Emily Clarke 1904 Plymouth, Devon, England England & Wales deaths 1837-2007 98
• Emily Clarke 1937 Plymouth, Devon, England England & Wales deaths 1837-2007 96
• Emily G Clarke 1924 St. Thomas, Devon, England England & Wales deaths 1837-2007 88
• Emily Knowles 1846 Kingsbridge, Devon, England England & Wales births 1837-2006 86
• Emily Knowles 1846 St. Thomas, Devon, England England & Wales births 1837-2006 80
• Emily Knowles 1848 Newton Abbot, Devon, England England & Wales births 1837-2006 77
• Emily Knowles 1869 Woolwich, London, England England & Wales marriages 1837-2008 76

Obviously I can't be sure which are the right people without ordering the certificates, but with a baptism on 12 Apr 1846 from Slapton, I would expect the 1846 birth registration from Kingsbridge Reg District to be the most likely candidate. The Q1 1904 death registration from Plymouth is consistent with the death date of 20 Mar 1904 from the Probate Calendar, and as previously noted, the Q1 1869 marriage registration in Woolwich with possible spouses of WILLIAM YOUNG, ALFRED CLARKE is very likely to be the right one.

[jmurphy]

After a bit of computer trouble, I've gone back to working with the FMP tree hints. Part of the difficulties I had were caused by my not realizing how to add something to the tree as alternate information, but after watching the webinar I'll give that feature a try.

The main difficulty I see now is that when I am merging hints from one of the marriage datasets that come from parish records (banns or the marriages), I am seeing the place name for the event (the parish name and place) being offered to me as a residence and vice versa.

Many of these hints are from the Devon Marriages or Devon Banns, in particular, from the parish Slapton St. James the Greater. I can go through my hints and pull out a specific example if needed.

[itsibitsimi]

My great grandfather on my fathers side was Alfred Clarke. My connection to.him is that he marries Elizabeth Nash Scott. Some time around the 1900s. I'm interestes in the alfred clarke you apoke of in a post stating something about his.connected to.India. we have an asian decwnt disease called behceys that runs in oir gwnes.

[jmurphy]

My great grandfather on my fathers side was Alfred Clarke. My connection to.him is that he marries Elizabeth Nash Scott. Some time around the 1900s. I'm interestes in the alfred clarke you apoke of in a post stating something about his.connected to.India. we have an asian decwnt disease called behceys that runs in oir gwnes.

I'm sorry I didn't answer sooner -- I've been away from the forum.

The Alfred Clarke I know of was born in around 1842 and served in the Royal Artillery. His India service was from 9 Feb 1875 to 11 May 1881 (6 years 92 days). His son Alfred R. Clarke was born in Ireland while his father was on Home service. I don't have any information on Alfred the son after 1881 so I don't know if he married. Only two of the children were born in India -- Walter Thomas born 1874 and Frederick Richard born 1880. The other children were all born in the UK.

This is not in one of my husband's direct lines, so I don't have much information on the family.