‘Family History Online and other genealogical search engines’

Chad Hanna - 21 Feb 2007 - speaking at the BerksFHS Computer Branch, Woodley

Chad has been member of BerksFHS since the late 1980’s, and held several key positions in the Society. He is also a member of the FFHS computer committee, and wrote a proposal for FamilyHistoryOnline in December 2001m and thereafter developed the current system.

During the evening he compared and contrasted information held by Ancestry, FamilyHistoryOnline, FindMyPast, FreeREG, etc, relating to England and Wales

Web sites looked at:

www.FamilyHistoryOnline.net - for the Federation of Family History Societies
www.FamilySearch.org – For the International Genealogical Index (IGI)
www.FreeBMD.org.uk - part of FreeUKgen with FreeReg and FreeCEN
www.Ancestry.co.uk - part of MyFamily.com
www.FindMyPast.com – Formerly www.1837online.com
www.BritishOrigins.com - part of the Origins Network, inc. Society of Genealogists data.

Number of records (for England and Wales) as of Feb 2007

Service	Census	Parish Registers	BMD
Family History Online	40.9 million inc. all 1881	21.3 million inc. 15 m burials	1 million mainly Derbyshire
Family Search International Genealogical Index (IGI)	1881 26.6 million exc. Scotland	50 m C&M (est.) 1 m frames 1988	nil
FreeCen, FreeReg, FreeBMD	9 million (inc. Scotland)	1.5 million	129 million (1837-1915)
Ancestry	Complete exc. Manchester 1851 unfilmed etc.	15 million (for UK inc. probate)	Complete
FindMyPast exc. 1837online	1841, 1861, 1871 & 1891	Nil	Complete
BritishOrigins	1841, 1861, partial 1871	7million + marriages 300,000 burials	nil

  
IGI Batch Numbers

http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/FindingBatchNos.html
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers.htm

FreeUKgen coverage

FreeBMD see – www.freebmd.org.uk/progress.shtml
FreeCEN see – www.freecen.org.uk/statistics.html
FreeReg – www.freereg.org.uk - no information yet.

Comparison of Sounds-like searching algorithmns

http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/brian.randell/Genealogy/NameMatching.pdf

Surnames for each county on FamilyHistoryOnline

Surnames link on home page to http://www.familyhistoryonline.net/name/index.shtml can help to reveal variant spellings.

Wildcard and variant survey, as of Feb 2007

Service	Wild cards	AAA*	Sounds like	Variants
Family History Online	* ?	None needed	Not available	Off (Forename & Surname)
Family Search (Int. Gen. Index)	No	—	No	On (Forename & Surname)
FreeBMD	* ?	None needed	Surnames (Phonex?)	On (only Forenames)
Ancestry	* ?	3 needed if entry made	?Surnames if exact match off	?Forenames if exact match off
FindMyPast ex. 1837online	* ?	2 other letters for *	No	Off (Forename & Surname)
BritishOrigins	* ?	1 needed	Uses NameX	Exact, Close and All

Note: BritishOrigins requires a surname to be entered, others can work on forenames alone.
 

updated 20^th March 2007