However, I often encounter issues where someone who was born in the 1700s has their parents, siblings or children flagged as "private" because the default for all individuals is that they are alive unless marked deceased.

Can we implement a filter that automatically flags any individual who is more than 150 years old as deceased (the exact threshold need not be exactly 150 ... but you know what I mean).

This would enable us to research families using the smart match feature even where individuals have forgotten to flag their long dead ancestors as dead.

When I first started using FTB, I was a bit excited about the Smart Match thing.

After a while, though, I found that the places to which I matched were poorly researched, totally undocumented, often just plain wrong.   I wrote the the people managing those sites and asked, "How do you know that X was the father of Y?  What documentation do you have for X and Z marrying on such a date?"

The usual answer was, "I got it from a smart match with somebody else."   In other word, a copy of a copy of a copy...maybe somewhere, somebody has done some research or checked some original sources, but how do you know?

Lately, any smart match I check, I find that I've got more data, and more accurate info, than any of the matches.  I've even found a few with data and photos that obviously came from my site (not that they bother to attribute those photos to me!)

So tell me, what's the point of smart matches?   Hunting them down and confirming them seem to me to be a total waste of time.   Am I missing something?

You are missing nothing sir. You are spot on the money and one of many disgruntled by the smart-match concept that is the core of MH.

I am concerned that when incorrect data is published- either in ignnorance or by malice, then as it is taken up by one user after the other- it BECOMES the fact  by virtue of the numbers of users who have "matched". If the originator of the data has - expired or walked away from myheritgae there is NO WAY to have the data corrected or withdrawn.

I have many "discussions"wtih users who justify their situation by saying- I cant validate the info - I just smart matched.

The MUST be a process by which inferier data can be challenged and or removed.

I would be interested to hear if anyone has found a way to avoid having to do the work twice!

 Denise

For a tree published on april 29 with only 250 entries why it not smart matched  by now ( may 13) - that is 14 days- how long must I wait or is it a conspiracy that you dont or wont let my tree be matched because its not Premium.

My site says- extend your account to premuim and get more and faster matches.

Please explain how fast and how many MORE matched would I get - compare basic to premium- I very interested in your results.

Hei,

dere ønsker at jeg begynner å abonnere på PREMIUM.

Jeg har ikke tenkt å starte med det ennå -  kanskje en gang senere.

Derfor får jeg heller ikke bekreftet eller avkreftet på de mailene dere sender til meg angående Smart Match. Beklager!

Vennlig hilsen

Inger Lise Amundsen

Thank you for the feedback.

 The thought behind this was that you might want to contact the site manager and ask for details- It means

that there is a possibility of a match but we can not let you see the information because the site manager marked it as private/The person you matched with is alive.

We will discuss this approach and might change it.

Thanks,

Arbel / MyHeritage 

Hi

They keep showing up becuse keep changing the name on the database. I must say I have given up using smartmatch. It really too bad.

Erik!