Find my past vs Ancestry vs Roostireland versions of the RC parish registers

pinkypinky · 01-03-2016 09:45AM #1

This thread is to discuss, compare and contrast the different versions of the NLI parish registers which are now online.

Ancestry (free this month)
Findmypast (apparently free forever)
Rootsireland (€25 a month but does have other unique records)

shanew · 01-03-2016 09:47AM

Search of baptism transcripts looking good on FMP - search is not great at some Latin names, but fine with wildcard searches

pinkypinky · 01-03-2016 09:56AM

First thoughts on FMP:

Hard to find the link for the right database, but this is usual. It's also very slow right now but I'd imagine that's just lots of people accessing it.

I started with some records I knew would be there, and they all showed up where expected.

An 1849 baptism in St Andrews that I looked at doesn't have sponsors in the transcription but they are there in the image.
An 1879 baptism in Haddington Road gives DOB, baptism date, address of parents but again no sponsors though they are there in the image.
If you leave the year blank, you get lots of hits which bring up typed indexes, etc.

shanew · 01-03-2016 10:06AM

The Baptisms I've tried, are searchable with mother's maiden surname, but this doesn't seem to appear on the initial transcript - EDIT - it does appear on the full transcript

shanew · 01-03-2016 10:15AM

a couple of very useful features - you can search just by either surname (or both) without any first names, and/or within a selected list of parishes e.g. the primary parish and all those surrounding

Hermy · 01-03-2016 10:57AM

shanew wrote: »

...you can search just by either surname (or both) without any first names...

This might be the single biggest issue I have with Roots - the very restrictive nature of the search facility.

blue banana · 01-03-2016 11:02AM

Hermy wrote: »

This might be the single biggest issue I have with Roots - the very restrictive nature of the search facility.

This has actually changed in recent months on RootsIreland. It's definitely not as restrictive as it used to be.

Hermy · 01-03-2016 11:13AM

blue banana wrote: »

This has actually changed in recent months on RootsIreland. It's definitely not as restrictive as it used to be.

Is it possible now to enter just a surname and get results back?
Or are you still required to enter 2 to 3 criteria for a valid search?

blue banana · 01-03-2016 12:49PM

Yep one surname is sufficient now, much improved.

shanew · 01-03-2016 02:58PM

Search on FMP seems much better than the one on Ancestry which has no parish lists, and still have to find some of the test records which were easy to locate on FMP

pinkypinky · 01-03-2016 04:00PM

I hate the way Ancestry gives free access now. Even with a login, you have to use their limited search box, which returns people by that name in Ancestry member trees. I had to navigate to the parish link and people are given the option of selecting a diocese. Americans are so likely to know the diocese. Ridiculous!

When I search for the same two baptisms as above, it does show St Andrews in the list view and the parents' names. No sponsors listed in the transcript.

Same iffy spelling of Latin as in FMP which proves they are the same database.
The image of the 1879 is much clearer on Ancestry than FMP though.

pedroeibar1 · 01-03-2016 04:16PM

Very opposite result for me, Ancestry's search function has won by a large margin! (Praise indeed from me, given my known views/comments on Ancestry in the past!)

For a long time I have been stumped by a few pre GRO births and marriages in Cork city - family equidistant from two churchs and I spent hours looking at B&M Registers for one baptism..

Today, on FMP I entered the family name, the year of birth (1850 fuzzy at +/- 10 years), place of birth Cork and the mother’s maiden name. Zero hits.

On Ancestry the same inputs brought up all but one of the children of that marriage plus many more “possibles” as it included others with either the same surname or Christian name of the mother. Annoyingly it did not give me the one I'm looking for!

The problem was the page sequences for records at St. Mary's Cork are not always sequential and "odd" entries are randomly entered.

There are a few very odd spelling interpretations of one name, so I'll check later to see if it is the same / replicated on both databases.
edit - just checked - they have/are using the same database

pinkypinky · 01-03-2016 04:47PM

Looks like the mother's first name rather than surname is in the index on FMP. This is a mistake because the user will have to view each image to find out the right surname. Imagine if you were looking for Mary!

shanew · 01-03-2016 05:26PM

I can search baptisms using surname and mothers maiden surname successfully on FMP for any I've looked at ... even without date range, first names, county or parish

EDIT : one of my test search using just surnames (not a common combination - allow variations on both), family based in Bray - no date, no parish or county - FMP 8 baptisms , which match my original film searches, Ancestry give plenty of results but only the first three are relevant baptism matches, then displays two related marriages followed by various records that dont appear to be related - e.g. to just one of the surnames

pinkypinky · 01-03-2016 07:42PM

Oh dear me: terribly ignorant comments on the Irish Times facebook piece about it. I want to shout loudly "you're all idiots". But I won't.

Hermy · 01-03-2016 08:00PM

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't appear to be able to enter the parents names when searching on FMP.
Would it be that my sub is out?

Mollymoo19 · 02-03-2016 10:38AM

Hermy, when I select the specific record set directly from the ‘A-Z of record sets’, additional search fields such as spouse or parent’s names, parish, etc. become available. Did you try this?

Hermy · 02-03-2016 10:58AM

Thought I was going mad.
Yes, that's what I should have done.
Thank you.

pinkypinky · 02-03-2016 03:03PM

So interestingly, the inclusions of people's marriages in baptismal records are indexed separately. I just submitted a correction on a great-grandparent's name from her husband's baptismal entry.

VirginiaB · 02-03-2016 03:51PM

One big error on Ancestry. Many baptism records in the index give the mother's maiden name to the father. Eg, "Mary Murphy, daughter of John and Catherine Kelly" is in the image. An experienced researcher will know the father is John Murphy. But whoever indexed records like this had the baby as Mary Murphy and the parents as John Kelly and Catherine Kelly. Will definitely be a problem in searching.

Have not checked FMP for this.

pinkypinky · 02-03-2016 04:19PM

I saw someone talking about that on the FMP version yesterday on twitter. She wouldn't give an example to search with so I couldn't confirm it.

VirginiaB · 02-03-2016 06:12PM

Here is just one example. Michael Grehan, son of Cat Cunningham and Thos Cunningham--Kinnegad RC parish, Co Westmeath--10 December 1843. Left side of image about 1/3 way down.

Thomas Graham and Catherine Cunningham were my gt gt grandparents. Michael was their first child of three born Ireland. Only two are in the records as a number of pages are illegible. The other is Patrick 'Grehan', with parents listed correctly as the priest entered them with their full names--Thomas 'Grehan' and Cath Cunningham.

I found a number of examples such as this.

Alan259 · 02-03-2016 06:29PM

VirginiaB wrote: »

One big error on Ancestry. Many baptism records in the index give the mother's maiden name to the father. Eg, "Mary Murphy, daughter of John and Catherine Kelly" is in the image. An experienced researcher will know the father is John Murphy. But whoever indexed records like this had the baby as Mary Murphy and the parents as John Kelly and Catherine Kelly. Will definitely be a problem in searching.

Have not checked FMP for this.

I have just been using FMP's version of the indexes and for the parish of Claregalway, Co. Galway, every one of the entries has the father's surname only on the child and the mother's maiden surname on both the parents.

Hermy · 02-03-2016 06:51PM

Pinky, as an example check the children of Michael Moore and Mary Anne Hope baptised in Dunboyne in the 1850's.

Joseph Moore son of Michl Hope and Mary Anne Hope
Edward P Moore son of Michl Hope and Mary A Hope
Michl Moore son of Michl Nipe and Cath Nipe
Edward Ignatius Moore son of Michl Hope and Mary Anne Hope
John Moore son of Michl pope and Mary Ann Pope
Patrick Moore son of Michl Moore and Mary Anne Hope
Mary Teresa Moore daughter of Michl Moore and Mary Anne Hope

Mollymoo19 · 02-03-2016 06:57PM

pinkypinky wrote: »

I saw someone talking about that on the FMP version yesterday on twitter. She wouldn't give an example to search with so I couldn't confirm it.

Definitely the issue is replicated at FMP, I was just looking at one instance of this - Andrew Byrne, baptised 13 Sep 1862, Suncroft, Kildare. Parents given as Denis Birmingham (should be Byrne) and Mary Birmingham.

All the records I've seen on FMP show 'Transcript Copyright Ancestry.com LLC', suggesting they're using Ancestry's transcriptions.

The Chieftain · 02-03-2016 07:14PM

pinkypinky wrote: »

So interestingly, the inclusions of people's marriages in baptismal records are indexed separately. I just submitted a correction on a great-grandparent's name from her husband's baptismal entry.

Hi PP, can you expand on this? I tried a test case with FMP and Ancestry where neither seem to show a marriage I know of from the original registers. The original registers are mixed - they include both baptisms and marriages - are you saying they did something specific for such registers?

Catsmeow · 02-03-2016 08:39PM

pinkypinky wrote: »

Oh dear me: terribly ignorant comments on the Irish Times facebook piece about it. I want to shout loudly "you're all idiots". But I won't.

Have to agree with you Pinky. I've just checked that out, shocking level of ignorance shown.

pinkypinky · 02-03-2016 09:02PM

The Chieftain wrote: »

Hi PP, can you expand on this? I tried a test case with FMP and Ancestry where neither seem to show a marriage I know of from the original registers. The original registers are mixed - they include both baptisms and marriages - are you saying they did something specific for such registers?

The practice whereby letters of freedom were issued by the baptismal parish for marriage in a different parish led to clergy in the baptismal parish annotating baptismal records with the details of the person's marriage.

Example: look up Michael Joseph Bradley in the marriages for Dublin in 1908. There's 2 entries in the FMP index. One is the marriage record in Harrington st and one is against his baptismal record in Haddington Road...where they have his wife incorrectly transcribed as Lambert instead of Lawless. This is the correction I submitted.

pinkypinky · 02-03-2016 09:05PM

Mollymoo19 wrote: »

All the records I've seen on FMP show 'Transcript Copyright Ancestry.com LLC', suggesting they're using Ancestry's transcriptions.

The 2 companies collaborated on the transcription process. Wonder how they came to agree that Ancestry would have the copyright?

pedroeibar1 · 02-03-2016 09:21PM

pinkypinky wrote: »

The 2 companies collaborated on the transcription process. Wonder how they came to agree that Ancestry would have the copyright?

He who pays the piper...... I'd guess that Ancestry led the process and paid for the transcription. There most likely was a licence agreement with FMP whereby after an up-front fee, use by FMP subscribers would rack up usage fees payable by FMP to Ancestry. As FMP owns Mocavo, Genes Reunited, The British Newspaper Archive it would bring momentum to the party. I could be wrong, but that is how I would consider structuring it.

pinkypinky · 02-03-2016 09:32PM

Except then why is FMP giving it away free (other than to put Rootsireland out of business)?

Find my past vs Ancestry vs Roostireland versions of the RC parish registers

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