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

pinkypinky · 01-03-2016 10:45am #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 10:47am

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 10:56am

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 11:06am

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 11:15am

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 11:57am

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 12:02pm

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 12:13pm

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 1:49pm

Yep one surname is sufficient now, much improved.

shanew · 01-03-2016 3:58pm

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 5:00pm

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 5:16pm

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 5:47pm

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 6:26pm

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 8:42pm

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 9:00pm

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 11:38am

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 11:58am

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

pinkypinky · 02-03-2016 4:03pm

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 4:51pm

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 5:19pm

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 7:12pm

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 7:29pm

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 7:51pm

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 7:57pm

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 8:14pm

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 9:39pm

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 10:02pm

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 10:05pm

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 10:21pm

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 10:32pm

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

tabbey · 02-03-2016 11:58pm

pinkypinky wrote: »

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

Is FMP not just giving it free for one week?

pedroeibar1 · 03-03-2016 12:00am

pinkypinky wrote: »

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

Ancestry & FMP don’t give a fiddlers about RootsIreland – Roots probably is not even a blip on the limit of their radar horizon, nothing to worry about, just look at the internal politics in RottsIreland and the IFHF. Those are head in the sand bodies, parish pump protectionists fighting turf war politics. They had their opportunity but lost it. With the newly transcribed Parish records the genealogical train has left the station and RootsIreland ain’t on it. Maybe it has (had?) a chance if their search functions were better than Ancestry’s, but that is not the case and looks unlikely that they would ever get their act together.

Ancestry/FMP will get usage of the new Parish Register database up, start charging and an increase in their corporate value will fall into place. They also will obtain economies of scale. Quite possibly Ancestry already has first right of refusal on buying FMP (I would also have looked for that!)
Ancestry state they have more than 2 million subscribers. They also have AncestryDNA, AncestryProGenealogists, Family Tree Maker, Fold3 and Newspapers.com. That generates big cashflow. They are way out in front of everyone.....

FMP / Findmypast – (previously DC Thomson Family History) is still owned by DCT via Brightsolid, a data storage facility leaning towards Cloud computing. They also have links with Scotland’s people. I’d guess that FMP could be sold off as it does not have much in common with the parent’s core business- that probably is why it was put into Brightsolid. However, FMP really has a poor image for customer service (just google it), I’ve had nightmare dealings with them that would warrant complaints to several (consumer & financial) agencies if I had the time to fight over the odd €15 or failing to cancel direct debits. It was so technically impossible for them to give me a refund they gave me a couple of free months instead.

The only other show in town is MyHeritage and is worth watching. Israel-based, some powerful venture capital money behind them. Although they also own FamilyTreeBuilder, World Vital Records and Geni.com, they need more "numbers" to achieve critical mass and will either acquire or be acquired…..

Small local or even small international companies have no future in what essentially is a big numbers game.Survivors will need to develop and exploit a specific niche and get remunerated for it - that is hard in genealogy, when so much is available free of charge.

pinkypinky · 03-03-2016 12:14am

I actually think FMP are trying to compete with Ancestry. They don't yet, especially in the US, but they're cheaper and more useful for Irish records at the moment.

According to Claire Santry, they're giving this particular record set away free forever. The rest of the Irish records are just free for a week.

I agree that Rootsireland have their head in the sand, but as one of the only Irish companies in the game, I would be sorry to see them go. They do still have unique records, even if they are only transcriptions.

pedroeibar1 · 03-03-2016 12:43am

pinkypinky wrote: »

I actually think FMP are trying to compete with Ancestry. They don't yet, especially in the US....

If they are trying, they have no hope. There is no way FMP could take on Ancestry in the US and make money. There comes a time when competing is neither practicable nor profitable. Even if FMP were competing, why would Ancestry then give them an edge by allowing access to the BM parish records?

A strategy to follow is to be the biggest in your own market and the best in difficult markets. That way you gain credibility and cash – people do not mind paying a little over the odds for a premium product.

pinkypinky wrote: »

According to Claire Santry, they're giving this particular record set away free forever.

I don’t doubt CS’s comments/integrity on what she has written, but I cannot see that happening.

pinkypinky · 03-03-2016 10:29am

I agree it's surprising, but it would be as big a PR disaster as the 1939 Register launch if they retract the free forever promise on this.

FURET · 03-03-2016 10:36am

I just saw this report on RTE.ie: http://www.rte.ie/news/player/2016/0301/20944135-ten-million-historical-records-from-catholic-parishes-published-online/

Bizarrely the report doesn't give the website URL - what's the web address so that I can search this database?

pinkypinky · 03-03-2016 10:54am

http://search.findmypast.ie/search-world-Records/ireland-roman-catholic-parish-baptisms
http://search.findmypast.ie/search-world-Records/ireland-roman-catholic-parish-burials
http://search.findmypast.ie/search-world-Records/ireland-roman-catholic-parish-marriages

Also on Ancestry, Rootsireland and without transcription on the National Library's site.

ETA: I just watched that report. It's hilarious. Showing the microfilms and actually implying people were using microfilm until this went online.

shanew · 03-03-2016 12:40pm

pinkypinky wrote: »

....According to Claire Santry, they're giving this particular record set away free forever. The rest of the Irish records are just free for a week.....

thought their wording was a little unclear - that's the way it read me too, but was not 100% sure

pedroeibar1 · 06-03-2016 10:44am

According to an email from Ireland Reaching Out –

FMP has free access to indexed Catholic Parish Registers and their entire Irish collection of records until the 7th of March 2016

Ancestry has free access to indexed Catholic Parish Registers and entire Irish collection of records for the whole month of March

(my emphasis)

pinkypinky · 06-03-2016 1:37pm

That's weird.

It does say on FMP's blog post about the launch that the Catholic parish registers are free forever. I guess we shall see on Tuesday!

shanew · 06-03-2016 1:55pm

pinkypinky wrote: »

That's weird.

It does say on FMP's blog post about the launch that the Catholic parish registers are free forever. I guess we shall see on Tuesday!

and in the email on the 4th March

'..the registers form one of the most important record collections for Irish family history and will be free to search forever on Findmypast...'

pedroeibar1 · 06-03-2016 2:08pm

pinkypinky wrote: »

That's weird.

It does say on FMP's blog post about the launch that the Catholic parish registers are free forever. I guess we shall see on Tuesday!

It says it's 'free to search' forever...We will probably find that the search results will contain minimal info and a pay-for clickthrough.

As an aside, I have ignored FMP for the last few days because their search function is so awful - inevitably I'm just getting the GRO references, no images, and nothing from the registers. Also, when I do find something I get a 'Subscribe' message. They have looked at this before, saying it was a problem with my cache so I cleared that , no improvement; next they said there could be a problem caused by my IP address because I've had more than one account (.co.uk and .ie, where certain screens would default to the different accounts), so I should close both and they would create a new one, but all my saved stuff would disappear as would the tick marks on stuff I've looked at.

Ancestry might not be great, some seach results are quite 'off' but it works and is more intuitive.

RGM · 07-03-2016 8:50pm

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

According to an email from Ireland Reaching Out –

FMP has free access to indexed Catholic Parish Registers and their entire Irish collection of records until the 7th of March 2016

I read that as: The entire collection of Irish records is free until March 7th. The registers will be free after that, but the entire collection of Irish records will not.

VirginiaB · 07-03-2016 9:35pm

The indexing is very flawed but far better than none at all. I have been using Ancestry as I find it easier to search than FTM.

One success story is finding a woman w my uncommon family surname married in one parish in 1841, which I did last July. With the indexed parish records, wild card searches and the NLI's very helpful map of adjoining parishes, I was able to find the baptism of her three children in a neighboring parish. In only one was her surname spelled right in the index. That parish even provided townlands. Then with NYC directories on Fold3, I found her and two of the children in Manhattan in 1850. I was able to confirm her as my gt gt grandfather's sister thru city directories and subsequent research in newspaper obits. I could never have found any of this without those parish records and the index.

pedroeibar1 · 07-03-2016 11:47pm

I agree and in fairness where the transcription search really stands out as helpful is on locating entries that are out of sync. for date or event - for e.g. when searching the Registers on microfilm in NLI I've found baptism entries mixed with marriages. In the records of St. Mary's in Cork for several years in the 1840's entries are very random, several pages of jumbled dates, where the clerk has gone back a few pages to use the left side of the register. I was really happy to find an 1843 marriage that was entered pages away from the 'correct' place. It was a very faint image, random position and I definitely must have passed over it before on NLI searches.

For your US family, if they were in NYC in 1850 it would be worth having a look for them in Tyler Anbinder's book on the Five Points. I got some great info in it from the Emigrant Savings Bank records.

pinkypinky · 08-03-2016 3:11pm

I have clarified with FMP: the index and images will remain free but users will need to register an account (without payment details) to use it.

pedroeibar1 · 10-03-2016 12:13am

Thanks for that info Pinky, but TBH it's not much use. I've really given up on FMP this time. I tried again today on the parish registers; after I logged on to FMP and did a search, it defaulted to findmypast.au (Australia!) and then wanted a "pay" subscription. Other entry points (various links from this forum and elsewhere) ended up with no success and various other results. I really have to wonder about custome care in FMP (none of those is mine).

The two "Big Things" in corporate governance at the moment are (a) cyber risk and (b) reputational risk. Whatever about the former, FMP/Enneclann obviously have no idea of the latter. Were I an investor in a geno company I would insist on it having a presence on this forum to respond to criticism and take appropriate action. I'd guess FMP do not even have a customer focus group in Ireland! Clearly they do not care. Shame on the management!

tabbey · 10-03-2016 12:27am

pinkypinky wrote: »

That's weird.

It does say on FMP's blog post about the launch that the Catholic parish registers are free forever. I guess we shall see on Tuesday!

When I first read free forever, I assumed it was an error.
Now that it seems to be intentional, I wish them all the best.

I am sceptical however about anything being forever, technology and corporate bodies are changing so rapidly, that both can become obsolete almost overnight.

pinkypinky · 10-03-2016 10:33am

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

The two "Big Things" in corporate governance at the moment are (a) cyber risk and (b) reputational risk. Whatever about the former, FMP/Enneclann obviously have no idea of the latter. Were I an investor in a geno company I would insist on it having a presence on this forum to respond to criticism and take appropriate action. I'd guess FMP do not even have a customer focus group in Ireland! Clearly they do not care. Shame on the management!

I think all of that stuff would be managed from the UK office - all publicity, etc certainly is. Those reviews on that site are quite poor. While I'm not defending them, they did respond to the mass of negative publicity surrounding their decision to charge for the 1939 register and it is now free to annual subscribers.

Only a few companies have a presence on boards - some of the telecoms? - and I'm not sure it really works the way they'd hoped. It's just an another avenue for complaint.

ETA: Ancestry's reviews on that site are not great either.

montgo · 10-03-2016 7:04pm

FMP is not working for me now.

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

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