General Chat

Might be an old topic, but...

What is the point (apart from profit for Genes Re.) of asking for details of a person, i.e. their approximate date of birth, and then selling us possible birth matches that are nearly a century adrift?

You would have thought that giving the information that someone was born in 1802, give or take a couple of years, SHOULD restrict results to 1797-1807.

Is it just a con trick?


Allen.

Genes dont actually hold any records they direct you to other sites . Dont think you would find records pre 1837 anyway as these would be parish records held in the appropriate area Records Office

Well I know EXACTLY what you mean...
I also get very angry about someone I am looking for, born in IRELAND.... and I will be matched up wit the same name and/or date of birth, born in JAMAICA.
What is that about?
Deanna X

Perhaps you could explain what it is you are looking at, as your message isn't that clear.

Shirley is referring to Search Records, Deanna to HotMatches, witch are rather different.

Births.

Put in surname, first name, approx date of birth, place of birth.

Return: blah blah blah here are 300 possible matches for your ancestor blah blah . (Yes I know it says possible, but they AREN'T possible, not if I've put in 1802 and they're giving me 1912!)

And all they actually do is give you a first and last name of a page, so you're looking for BOGGINS, they'll give you Bodwell to Bohurst, and you only find out that a) there's no Boggins at all, and b) there's no Boggins of that date or anything like it, once you've paid your credit and looked at the page.

I've even tried putting in KNOWN names and dates, verified by birth certificates etc., just as a test, and the result is the same. Genes Re. haven't got that data, and they don't redirect you to some site that might have.

(Is there a WitchesReunited do you think?)

Allen.

Allen, it depends how the results are transcribed what results you get.

Ancestry has transcribed all births marriages and deaths between 1837 and 2005 or so.

Findmypast and some other sites only give the pages with POSSIBLE matches for the name required as they indexes are not fully transcribed.

Well, you pays your money etc.

I had a look at ancestry.com, (and I know it's a little more expensive). I looked up my Boggins and it came back saying it had 5,000,000 hits, at which I scoffed.

Then I had a look at the hits. And to be sure it had hundreds of good hits, plus misspellings, spouses, etc. So maybe not 5 million, but definitely hundreds. Unlike GenesRe., which claims hundreds, then gives you none.

Caveat emptor, I suppose.

I am migrating to ancestry.com, with my trees.


Allen.

You can find BMDs up to about 1940 on Free BMD. No need to pay a penny.