Of course it's 'Horses for Courses' and I'm sure that we all use as many sites that are available. I've found some really useful information on some quite obscure sites! Lin -----Original Message----- From: sog-uk-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:sog-uk-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Peter at LostCousins Sent: 05 May 2014 15:28 To: sog-uk@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SOG-UK] FMP - An apology > Personally I find I have a greater success with Ancestry and records > that I find there do not show on FMP, either the old system or the > new! I don't have a subscription to FMP, I only buy credits as and > when I think I've found something. My subscription to Ancestry has > certainly proved worthwhile. The fact that site B doesn't have all the records that you found at site A doesn't make site A better - indeed, it tells you little or nothing about which site is best. Ancestry and findmypast have largely different record sets, and so it's inevitable that many records found at one site won't be found at the other. It's not a question of which site is better, but which site has the record sets most relevant to your research - and inevitably most of us end up needing to use both sites. There are overlaps, of course - the most obvious being the censuses and the GRO indexes. Searching the census by address currently doesn't work as well at the new findmypast site as it did at the old one - but then Ancestry doesn't even offer searching by address. On the other hand I like being able to search using the parents' forenames, a feature that Ancestry offers and findmypast doesn't (but then nor did they at the old site). Ancestry's GRO index search is inconvenient because of the split at 1915, the poor way in which it handles middle names which may or may not be shown in full, sloppy transcriptions in the early 20th century, and ridiculous allocation of registration districts to counties. Except for a death search with a precise birth date I'd use FreeBMD or findmypast ahead of Ancestry. But the simple fact is: researchers tend to prefer the site they're most familiar with, whether or not it's actually 'better' than the alternatives. That's why so many of us got annoyed when Ancestry, FamilySearch, and then findmypast revamped their sites! Peter ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message