* Internet matches with Ancestry

[Guernman30]

Can anyone please tell if there are any plans to add Ancestry internet matches to those from Find My Past & My Heritage?
I am a long term user of Ancestry and would be very reluctant to change.

Roots Magic provide matches from all three, but I would rather use Family Historian as my software of choice.

Regards
Peter Wright

[victor]

I have Family Tree Maker but FH is the one I always work on. I copy details from FH to FTM so that I can check names on Ancestry. I don't use EH or FMP
Victor

[Mark1834]

Peter, we are just users so have no insight into Calico Pie’s commercial plans. However, there is no evidence that it features on their radar.

It is possible to sync FH with Ancestry in order to exploit their hint system, using RM as an intermediary. However, it’s a rather labour-intensive process (but still far better than manually copying data between apps). See this Knowledge Base article.

[tatewise]

IMO Internet Data Matches are an overrated marketing gimmick.
You have to manoeuvre people into the Focus Window to get the matches displayed.
Annoyingly, you get offered Internet Data Matches for data that may not be covered by your subscription.
Having found a match and reviewed it you are no better off than if you had manually searched online for the data.
You still have to massage the data and images into FH Source Citations.

I suspect the majority of matches that would be found by Internet Data Matches will be found just as easily by using the plugins Lookup Missing Census Facts and Lookup Missing BMD Records.
They have the advantage of offering searches in Ancestry, FindMyPast, MyHeritage and FamilySearch and you choose the Individuals you want to involve in the search.

[Mark1834]

There's a pattern to these threads -

• Somebody asks whether Ancestry hints can be made to work with FH (as they do with RM & FTM).
• I say no, but there is a slightly long-winded process of syncing via RM if you want to keep a parallel Ancestry tree and maintain your hint history so they don't all come straight back again after you update the tree, which is what would happen with a simple GEDCOM export/import/update.
• Mike says grump, don't like hints anyway, use my plugins instead.
• I say plugins can help with mechanical searching of BMD/Census data (although personally I prefer not to use them), but hint matching can be much more than that - there are far more records available than just BMD/Census and they can be very good at seeing patterns in data (e.g. suggesting a woman's married name and later family), provided you are prepared to put up with all the mismatches, things you know already, and stuff that can't possibly be true.

We probably ought to save it as a template...

[tatewise]

Maybe it needs to be a Knowledge Base article?

However, I think there is a significant difference between FH Internet Data Matches and Ancestry/FMP/MH online Hints.
The online Hints are superior as they are more wide-ranging and you can see them across the whole tree quite easily.
But as you say, it is a rather labour-intensive process to get the tree online.

The plugins sit somewhere between the two. They offer more than FH Internet Data Matches, are easy to use, avoid records you already know about, but less wide-ranging than Hints.

[Mark1834]

Maybe it needs to be a Knowledge Base article?

It is already - link is in my first posting, above...

[mjashby]

There seems to be one important set of facts lacking in these discussions; and apparently not fully appreciated/understood by those who continue to enquire about automated internet matches ('Hints') directly from the Ancestry database, i.e. it is not within the gift of Calico Pie to provide/implement any such facility without entering into a formal business agreement with Ancestry to gain access to the Ancestry API (Application Program Interface).

The Ancestry API is not 'public' and has only been opened to one company to date, i.e. Rootsmagic Inc. At what cost and/or under what terms and conditions is not publicly known and neither company has, so far, provided any information about their business agreement, but it seems clear from the way TreeShare was implemented in RootsMagic that Ancestry holds all the cards and has placed quite restrictive conditions on the use of it's API, which some RootsMagic users seem to be not entirely comfortable with, e.g. the specific need to set up and maintain an Online Ancestry Tree. Also a significant number of those RootsMagic users who are content with the need to create and maintain online Ancestry Tree(s) to to use the TreeShare facility clearly seem to have been expecting (and continue ask about) the ability to 'auto-sync' their trees in a very similar way that FamilyTreeMaker does, but this is not possible using the API currently provided; and that ability remains exclusive to FamilyTreeMaker. The usual positive argument for the TreeShare approach as an alternative to full synchronisation is, of course, that it offers far greater integrity in the process by encouraging an interactive fact checking approach prior to importing/exporting data.

Mervyn

[tatewise]

Mark, I know about the Synchronizing Your Tree With Ancestry to Exploit Hints process.
I was referring to your comment: "We probably ought to save it as a template."
i.e. The pros & cons of Internet Data Matches versus Lookup Missing... plugins versus exploiting Ancestry/FMP/MH Hints, including Mervyn's valid point about the API.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Mark, I know about the Synchronizing Your Tree With Ancestry to Exploit Hints process.
I was referring to your comment: "We probably ought to save it as a template."
i.e. The pros & cons of Internet Data Matches versus Lookup Missing... plugins versus exploiting Ancestry/FMP/MH Hints, including Mervyn's valid point about the API.

I'm not sure there's sufficient consensus about what the pros and cons are. For example, none of hints, Lookup Missing... plugins, Internet Data Matches (IMO) meet one of the tests of the Genealogical Proof standard. Why? If you haven't got complete control of the searches you do, then you can't 'conduct a reasonably exhaustive search' or document the sources you have consulted. That won't bother a lot of people, so they woudn't see it as a 'con', whereas for me it's a complete show-stopper -- the reason I don't use any of the techniques.

I'm also wary of extending the scope of the KnowledgeBase to cover products beyond FH. We deliberately didn't migrate the general advice on doing research that was in the old KB, because it wasn't specific to FH.

[Mark1834]

Agree - for me, a “hint” is exactly that. It’s a possible connection to be thoroughly researched and sourced before I accept it into my tree. But how I do that is nothing to do with FH. I would use the same approach whichever app I was using. I know what standard of “proof” I require, but if someone else has a different height bar, who am I to say they are pedantic or sloppy?

How you balance hints, plugins and direct searching is much more about research techniques and objectives than about how to use FH.