Impressions of "FindMyPast" website wrt WW1 Army Records (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Wednesday, July 06, 2016, 16:57 (3055 days ago) @ Jefff

I'm not sure if this access also includes their pre WW1 Records, but if it does I know from experience (via my public library) that these Records give more extensive coverage than Ancestry's, for example.

This was my first real experience of using the FindMyPast website to look for WW1 records, so I thought I'd add a few more impressions about the site, and I'd be very interested in anyone else's feedback, please.

As per a recent thread, I'm not a fan of the new "improved" Ancestry website and come the winter I suspect I'll change to another subscription site, possibly FindMyPast. The main reason I haven't changed yet is I'm able to use Ancestry for a lot less cost than the rest, plus my researches are on hold for a while. I know from using FMP at my public library a few years back that they hold more British Army records than Ancestry, especially pre WW1, so this is a distinct advantage to me over Ancestry for example, just a shame our library can no longer afford their FMP subs !.

This weekend I used the free FindMyPast access to revisit some WW1 soldiers in my tree that I've already researched on Ancestry. I was very pleased to find that FMP can offer some major improvements over Ancestry, namely their images of the same British Army Service & Pension record documents are clearly visually different and sometimes far-clearer to read than the "same" documents on Ancestry. Until now I'd always assumed the various subscription sites all shared so displayed the exact same images, but now I presume that FMP have re-photographed the original documents, in some cases with a significant improvement. I welcome anyone else's view on this belief ?. Do any other websites also do this ?. Thanks.

However, despite my knowing correct names, regiments and service numbers of my soldiers, from the Ancestry record sets, I still found some of them hard if not impossible to find on FindMyPast !?. I had assumed both websites would carry largely identical record sets. My problems maybe because I found the FMP "Military Records" search engine unusually difficult to get results, perhaps another case of "less gives more" ?. For example, I ended-up not bothering to input regiment name dispite my knowing it, I was wondering whether the lack of expected results was because it didn't interprete my "Gloucs" as "Glosters", or "Gloucestershire", etc. I also found that altho FMP might offer info pertaining to one Regiment a soldier had served in, but it didn't mention the other Regiment I knew they'd also served in, despite his Medal Cards including both Regiments hence Service Numbers ?. Or maybe that was just me, perhaps I need more practice on the site ?. It's also a shame that FMP doesn't also include images of the Medal Cards, unlike Ancestry, for example.

I hope my recent experiences are of interest to other users, and hope some may add their own thoughts regarding the "Find My Past" site.

Many thanks, Jeff.