nFS comparing possible matches

[JamesAnderson]

Yes, a subroutine in the program that checks for the type of errors described would work.

Using an example based on what I knew of BASIC programming theory back in the early 80s, a simple 'IF-THEN' type of subroutine would trap some of those obvious ones.

IF birthdate is greater than x years after parents birth THEN flag as problematic

Then the individual would know he had to look elsewhere for the information to see if this was indeed accurate, such as an adoption record or record indicating a guardianship situation where an older person might have adopted or entered into a guardianship type of relationship for some reason. Or some other extenuating circumstance .

A 100-year difference is simply not plausible, lesser periods of time with wide gaps would be harder to trap sometimes.

[scion-p40]

It seems to me that there are virtually no search parameters. Looking for someone born in 1850 yields folks who died 120 years later, and a century or two earlier, too. It doesn't match continents, either. A search for a US birth includes Canada & Europe. Searches focus on a first or a last name match, rather than both are absurd. Under very rare circumstances would Herman Goeglein also be known as Herman Collin, Herman Hoksbergen, or Herman Gold. This is a time consuming waste just begging for errors.

[scion-p40]

Aside from my very common Colonial American ancestors with tons of researchers, I have a good number of very uncommon (for the US) surnames. Searching for my less common surnames brings matches that are not in within 100 years of each other and only share one name--usually a given name. For example:

What you searched for:
Stanislass Dabkus b 1882

There were no close matches found. Only partial matches are shown below.
Partial matches: 6,099

Stanislass Dopkus b 1882 Russia (This one is him.)

Stanisaw, Count Sierakowski b 1884 <Preworsk, Glzn, Astr>
Stanislaw Smith b 10 Dec 1877 Bay City, Bay, Michigan
Casimir Dabkus Lithuania
Stanislass Meuneir
Stanislass Collette b 1776 of Bouctouche, New Brunswick
Kasmir Stanislass b 3 Mar 1891 Cook Co, Illinois
Charle Stanislass Chemitte
Stanislass Collette b 1776 of Bouctouche, New Brunswick
Cleopha Stanislass Florent Larantin b 21 Apr 1869 Jumeaux, Deux-Sevres, France
Stanislass Collette b 20 Sep 1844 Bouctouche, New Brunswick
Stanislass Bussy b 29 Nov 1784 Moyen, Meurth-Et-Moselle, France
Stanislass Catharina b 4 Sep 1854 Klara Forsamlin, Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
Sebastiana b 27 Apr 1882 Nossa Senhora Do Amparo, Amparo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

etc., etc. Why, pray tell, does this system "match" people based on only one given name or on only the birth year?

[garysturn]

We had a good example of how sometimes this type of search results might prove helpful. We were looking for a family in a Census. We had found them in the previous Census and in the Census after this one. We could not find them anywhere. We then did a search by the first name only in the locality where we thought he should be and got about 100 hits. One of those hits was the correct family. The person who had done the extracting of the Census for the index had misspelled the surname. We never could have found this family the way the surname was spelled in a normal search.

If you notice Record Search now has options as to how exact of a match you want to see in the search results. That might be a good future option for nFS.