I am not convinced of that, they do not seem to have recognised what a mess they have made of the site and are more interested in PR telling everyone that it is only a minor problem. They still have not managed to produce a nice simple, tidy summary of a household census entry that can be printed on less side of a sheet of paper as was possible before the 'improvements'. My standard test is to enter my family name in one of the censuses with just place of birth 'Bolton', I get no matches even though there are a dozen or so. It is over two months since they screwed up the site, I keep reading that it has got better but I have seen no difference. Martin Briscoe Fort William martin@mbriscoe.me.uk -----Original Message----- From: cheshire-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:cheshire-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Lesley Baxendale Sent: 05 June 2014 16:01 To: cheshire@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [CHS] FMP All very well if you don't happen to have lots of Cheshire ancestors. Neither site is fully comprehensive, but FMP is by far the best for Cheshire. It's having a few struggles at the moment, which I'm sure will get ironed out eventually.

Hi Martin, Just tried a census household print from the 1851 census. No problem - prints in order on one side of A4 - title at the top, household in order of age after the head & spouse - just what you would expect. My only beef with the printing process at the moment, is that it doesn't show the logo at the top, nor the information you would usually get at the bottom - just the URL address and place markers for the logo. I think that's probably got something to do with how the information is embedded into the page. The margins on the left are a bit skimpy too. Even so, it's much better than it was a few weeks ago, so they are obviously doing something. As for inputting place of birth. I could never get it to do that correctly on the old site, so it's no surprise that it still doesn't work. I think if you restrict the results to 'census' using the drop down list at the top & select a particular census year, you might have more luck, but it seems to depend on how the original database was indexed. If you put the place of birth in the keyword field, that works quite well. Just doing a general search on the census years won't work as 1841 didn't give that sort of information, so it stops everything else from working. Overall, I would say FMP is 'improving slowly'. Don't forget, it had lots of little foibles before, it's just that we are all now looking at the old site through rose tinted glasses. Regards Lesley On 05/06/2014 16:39, Martin Briscoe wrote: > I am not convinced of that, they do not seem to have recognised what a mess > they have made of the site and are more interested in PR telling everyone > that it is only a minor problem. > > They still have not managed to produce a nice simple, tidy summary of a > household census entry that can be printed on less side of a sheet of paper > as was possible before the 'improvements'. > > My standard test is to enter my family name in one of the censuses with just > place of birth 'Bolton', I get no matches even though there are a dozen or > so. > > It is over two months since they screwed up the site, I keep reading that it > has got better but I have seen no difference. > > Martin Briscoe > Fort William > martin@mbriscoe.me.uk > > -----Original Message----- > From: cheshire-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:cheshire-bounces@rootsweb.com] > On Behalf Of Lesley Baxendale > Sent: 05 June 2014 16:01 > To: cheshire@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [CHS] FMP > > All very well if you don't happen to have lots of Cheshire ancestors. > Neither site is fully comprehensive, but FMP is by far the best for > Cheshire. > > It's having a few struggles at the moment, which I'm sure will get ironed > out eventually. > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CHESHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

<<snipped>> I keep reading that it has got better but I have seen no difference. <<snipped>> Depends where you're looking. They have reintroduced the ability to download pages of newspapers, for instance. <<snipped>> None of the main family history sites seem to be working well at the moment, Ancestry and FamilySearch are having trouble too. Looks as though they are all busy updating their websites to fit in with the current fashion for doing everything from an iPad or tablet <<snipped>> Working on tablets and smartphones has to be a given. It's perfectly possible to do it - you just need to design layouts that respond differently to being on different sizes of glass. Re Ancestry - Yes, New Search anyone? And I suspect the impractical mechanism to choose birthplace in the FMP censuses had its inspiration in Ancestry restricting people to birthplaces in a drop-down list. And where did Ancestry get its inspiration from? The programmers? I suspect not - I think they got the idea from American *genealogists*. You don't have to go far before you find American genealogists going on about placename authority tables, i.e. a full and complete list of *all* placenames. (Honesty compels me to point out that when American genealogists refer to placenames they mean jurisdictions - and it might be possible to produce such a list for the UK - I think http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk has just that. But the Norwegian genealogists seem to be producing a database of all farm-names!!! Maybe "farm" means something different to them...) Adrian