Personally I think it a great idea, but even at a quick look I have 2 major problems with it. 1. The light grey font on a white back ground, unless you have young perfect eyes, is horrible, hard to read and glary. 2. I did a basic quick search and an advanced search on my great Grandfather Charles warren died 6 Dec 1956 Rutherglen, Victoria, Australia. Even with adding parents names, in both cases I got slammed with American entries, and even 4 star matches which were correctly matched to him, well, there were also matches considered to be 4 stars with totally different names and who died in America! So, the search bit is combersome so far. I think the idea is great and should be built upon, but I feel it has been rushed. Hope it improves, I'd certainly use the my heritage site more if it did. Best wishes, Jo.
The SuperSearch works kind of like a Google search in that it returns ALL results but then it shows them to you in order of relevance.
The reason for showing seemingly irrelevant results is due to the fact that as records were recorded by hand most of the time, name spellings may have changed, dates might be off, place names might not exist anymore. So when you search we want you to be able to make the decision whether or not a record that has a different birth date is actually the one you were looking for, rather than filtering that result out and lose the opportunity for you to find a record.
We are definitely working on the ranking of matches in order to give you more high quality results.
You say that Supersearch "shows them [results] to you in order of relevance. " I have no idea what SuperSearch is, but Record Matching from FTB sure doesn't work that way.
Take an example of a relative for whom I know the place and date of birth, the place and date of death, the place and date of marriage (all in the USA).
FTB gives me 5000 records. You say they're returned in order of relevance and I say that's nonsense. The first results are:
The first results are totally irrelevant, as they are on wrong continent. Why report something so obviously and totally useless? This is what previous posters have mentioned. This has nothing to do with handwritten records, mispellings, or the other things you mention -- it's just poor programming.
The US Social Security Death Index returns 2500 results for a specific name, date of death and place of death? Unbelievable! 2500 results from Find A Grave? Strange -- when I search that site for my specific data, it returns no results!
It appears that Record Matching is totally ignoring the data in the record. When you fix the code so that it works and returns relevant records, I'll once again be a happy customer, but until then I do not plan to renew my data subscription. I don't want to waste any more money on it.
Well, it's 167 days since my last comment. I've upgraded to build 5638 from 5634. Today, just to see if anything had improved, I clicked the "45 Records" reported for my grandfather, born in the US and later came to Canada. Here's what I got:
I am finding the same thing. An excellent idea, but when I search someone born in England who migrated to Australia, I also am bombarded with USA matches. I have to scroll through several pages of false information before I find anything remotely plausible.
The search engine doesn't seem to consider the country of residence at all when it searches.
When it works, it does work very well, but it seems I have to search a name, then click the 'UK Additional' option at the top when it ought to put all the Australian or UK options first.
Until now, this avoidance of the US data overload was a winning feature of MyHeritage. But still a great application and hopefully the kinks are being resolved as the problems appear.
The reason we give you a link to the "UK additional" option at the top of the results list is due to technical reasons. Our capability to display search results for this collection is a little more limited than other collections.
As time passes I am becoming more familiar with these features. I also now understand that it is a work in progress. Even in the past two weeks I have seen changes which improve functionality and add resources. It's looking better all the time.
I am hoping to see Australian records (electoral and school records) move beyond Queensland information soon!
It's unclear to me whether this research tool is related or equal to the new Super Search feature/product.
I understand that MyHeritage is a business and must generate revenue; however, it seems as though MH is turning into another Ancestry.com. Ancestry recently, via their iOS app (which does allow online editing of one's family trees) started sending HINTS, which are essentially SMART MATCHES. For every record or connection to another member's tree--there's a fee attached. Aarrrggghh!
Now My Heritage has added SuperSearch with the same 'feature' for a price. What an annoyance. What a pain in the neck. Will Smart Matches be immediately tied into this 'great feature'? I hope not. I appreciate the free-ness of Smart Matches and the opportunity to connect with other users without paying for every mouse click!
When I find a possible ancestor in Research and click for more info, I am sent to a membership sign up site. I am already a paid member. How does this work?
I can see on your account details that you have a Premium subscription. Not a Data subscription.
There are four MyHeritage collections. These are comprised of data from MyHeritage.com and are not available anywhere else on the internet. The four MyHeritage collections are:
1. MyHeritage family sites (like the Warrick Family Web Site, or the British Celebrities Site)
2. MyHeritage members (Site Managers and Site members of MyHeritage.com)
3. MyHeritage family tree individuals (people in the family trees at MyHeritage. This could include Napoleon Bonaparte or Albert Einstein)
4. MyHeritage photos (the pictures on MyHeritage.com)
Collections 1 & 2 are available to MyHeritage members with a Premium family site subscription as yourself.
If you want to have access to all the other records on the Super Search, you will have to buy a separate Data subscription or buy credits.
Hope this is useful. Please contact me for further comments or questions.
I suspect the icon by this message is a tombstone.
But to me it looks like a lady whose religious preference is to wear a heavy hood with a narrow aperture to look through. Could you re-design the icon to make it clear what it really is? The tombstone icon in Family Tree builder is unambiguous and looks much better...
As the Admin. Of my family research, When I add a member I thought they couldn't edit the work on the site? I had a member edit a entry on the site yesterday? The good thing is he is a cousin who I asked to join to make sure my Info. was correct.
You can also prevent people from editing site content by going to Setting tab > Privacy & change the settings for "Can site members edit the family tree" & "Can site members post content on the site".
Personally, I don't advise doing that. The fact people you invite can add data helps you.
Family sites are meant to be collaborative so by default, the site members that you invite (not just everybody) *can* edit the information and improve it. If you are not interested in them changing anything, please instruct them not to do this, either in the welcome message of the site, or by sending all site members a message (via Home > Site Members > Send e-mail to all members). There is also a setting that prevents site members from making changes so only you could make them. It is not working properly and we intend to fix it soon.
PS: you posted this item in the wrong place in the forums. It will be moved soon.
In simple terms, there is no way to assign a match, unless the guy without eyes and a magnifying glass, (think about that, so true) glass finds one. That guy without eyes actually happens to be a computer searching an inaccurate database for a perfect match.
One he'd never find even after the Sun consumes the Earth as it goes Red Giant 4 billion years from now.
Computers can be helpful, but one thing they are not, and that is intelligent.
That day is a long, long ways off.
Garbage in, garbage out. Until a computer learns to think an reason, they can't do nothing that they aren't programed to do.
Trying to find a match in an inaccurate database will never happen, as that isn't in the instruction set, program.
Assuming that you are matching to error free databases, entered by Human Beings, from data written down by Human Beings..is just asking for it.
You need a research tool to find stuff, like you do. Let the Human confirm the match even though the computer can't find it, and then forward a "correction suggestion" to the source of the entered data for revision to clean this mess up.
Ie. find a grave needs a clean up too, where the tombstones don't match the human input as above, along with the above Census Record. A computer will never fix that mess, cause it is not able to think on it's own, and as I said earlier, "the Sun will go Red Giant and consume the Earth, and still no dam match."
I'm new to MyHeritage and was quite impressed with the Family Tree-Builder. That being said, I'm really diappointed and annoyed with MyHeritage's misrepresentation of this so-called social networking "family-tree" website.
"Many of the records in SuperSearch are free however a data subscription is required to access all the collections." - Quote from MyHeritage "Do I have purchase a subscription to access SuperSearch".
Wow! Where's the free stuff under SuperSearch? I didn't find anything so far!
I'd like to see the list of what exactly is "free" at MyHeritage!
State exactly what is included with any of the memberships and do not offer false promises!
I've also noticed that the site is rather complex as far as navigation. Access to all parts of MyHeritage should on ONE menu at my Home Page rather than numerous webpages, e.g.
I agree that it is misleading. I sent an email to customer service to try to switch to the "data plan" because I cannot view any records despite having a "premium membership." the only thing I can see is family tree matches.
