Commercial First World War website problems

[E Wilcock]

The discussion about prompts to pay to view and link sources on the site Lives of the First World War rightly mentioned problems with other commercial sites handling First World War Records. I think this deserved discussion.

I gave a credit card number to the site Forces War Records in order to purchase from them a pdf of the British Jewish Book of Honour.

When I had difficulty searching soldiers names in this pdf book, I reported the problem to Forces War Records and was asked by them to provide further details of my failed searches. However my problems with the book could be reported and their answers to me could be read only by going into their site. My logging in to provide the details they requested and to try to solve this problem may have inadvertently triggered a membership subscription as three monthly charges of £8.95 were debited to my credit card.

I complained about this to Forces War Records and two of the unauthorised membership charges have now been refunded to my card.

I have now made a further complaint and am awaiting the refund of the third.

However, Forces War Records seem to have have no phone number nor e-mail address for contact or complaint. Once again, any contact with the Forces War Records company, either to send complaints about mistaken charges or to read any reply from the company, can only be made via their website. And it may well be that this requirement to visit the website, has the effect of triggering a membership subscription, although this cannot be justified and is not made clear.

It could be that the Forces War Records have replied to me on their site both about the pdf book and about the unauthorised charges to my account, but I am not prepared to enter their site to read the responses.

I have paid subscriptions to other internet sites and forums including Find My Past and have not had difficulties over payments. I have also regularly shopped on the net and have always without exception had a customer services e-mail with which to correspond. Until today, I had assumed this was a legal requirement for those selling items on the internet.

I should make it clear that I am glad to have a pdf file of the British Jewish Book of Honour, but members of this Forum should be aware that Forces War Records is a site from whom making a simple one off purchase in my case seems to have triggered membership charges I did not authorise and did not use.

[Terry_Reeves]

Evelyn

There were complaints from members of this forum about 18 months ago about the FWRs activities. One of their management team it turns out, was a member of this forum. Things got a little hot and he called in his MD who, to be fair, did respond to some of the criticisms. With regard to your particular problem, he was adamant that continuing subscription would remain part of their policy, despite that fact that the warning about it was buried deep in the company's terms. Unfortunately this is quite legal, but you have at least had a refund. I have a phrase for this sort of conduct, which I won't repeat here.

From a personal point of view I would avoid FWR like the plague. The majority of their information is generic and can be found for free on the net. For anyone tempted to use them for things such as the British Jewery Book of Honour, or indeed any other information, ask on this forum first.

TR

[Sue Light]

As far as I can work out, Forces War Records have been chosen as the latest 'partner' of The National Archives, and are handling the indexing of the admission and discharge records currently held in MH106. Although the new set will be welcome, it does leave people having to subscribe to yet another genealogy site, and one that's had very mixed reviews so far.

Sue

[keithmroberts]

As far as I can work out, Forces War Records have been chosen as the latest 'partner' of The National Archives, and are handling the indexing of the admission and discharge records currently held in MH106. Although the new set will be welcome, it does leave people having to subscribe to yet another genealogy site, and one that's had very mixed reviews so far.

Sue

I would rather drive 70 miles to Kew. I appreciate that option is not open to everyone, but I'm afraid that there is no way I will sign up for them. Terry is spot on.

Keith

[Sue Light]

Keith

While I agree with your sentiments, it would probably do you no good. As MH106 is currently comprised of hundreds of registers, indexing is really the only way to find what you're looking for - a random visit (or five, or ten) might still leave you empty handed. Indexing is really the only way to make them useful.

Sue

[keithmroberts]

Try sending a message to member timbo 58 he is the forum member who responded to issues in the past.

Sue

Once digitised by a partner of the National Archives the records should be accessible digitally at Kew,. That works with Ancestry and FMP, I'm sure it will be the same in this case. But thanks for the warning.

Keith

[barkalotloudly]

always use this site and I am sure any queries you have will be answered before you have finished typing them!!

[horatio2]

Clearly the business is doing well: "The Melksham-based company is urgently looking to enlist 28 new recruits to help its crack team of professional researchers and military experts bring the site’s World War 1 data up to date."

[Sue Light]

Once digitised by a partner of the National Archives the records should be accessible digitally at Kew,. That works with Ancestry and FMP, I'm sure it will be the same in this case. But thanks for the warning.

Keith

Yes, of course Keith - I was overlooking that in my excitement

[Terry_Reeves]

Clearly the business is doing well: "The Melksham-based company is urgently looking to enlist 28 new recruits to help its crack team of professional researchers and military experts bring the site’s World War 1 data up to date."

Hmmm. From what I have seen from their "crack team" is that that you are likely to get "see records at TNA" or something similar.

With regard to their involvement with TNA, I just wonder if they have had a good look at FWR. Unfortunately this is likely to give them some credence, which for me at least, they do not deserve. Why can't the TNA put MH106 online and charge as they do with war diaries. I suppose the argument will be cost.

TR

[spof]

Terry

Not just cost but demand for the documents. Despite Sue saying there are hundreds of registers, they still only comprise a very small percentage of what used to exist. If someone posts asking for help on granddad being wounded, MH 106 is not normally the first resource they get pointed to is it?

With 900 years of history plus the Empire, TNA has to concentrate on digitising the documents most in demand which is why we got the war diaries rather than giving them to <insert commercial organisation here>. The recent Militry Tribunal records put online were paid for by Friends of the TNA but even they probably couldn't get away, even in Centenary year, with ignoring all the other records TNA has.

My opinion of this company is the same as Keith's but I don't see any way around it. I just hope the period of "exclusivity" is shorter than say the service records which are now appearing elsewhere.

Glen

[E Wilcock]

There were complaints from members of this forum about 18 months ago about the FWRs activities.

Isnt this the trouble with abbreviations? There are other abbreviations used in the discussion of the Lives of the Great War site and to be honest, I dont know what they mean either.

I was quite unaware of any previous thread, in spite of searching the Great War Forum. Of course I searched. I have been a member since about 2002.

About a month ago spending quite a long time, and again today more briefly I did a search for Forces War Records, even putting the term in quotes and nothing came up that seemed to be about this. I also tried varying with an apostrophe.

I had previously bought the pdf of the army lists for 1916 on line (from a different vendor) and assumed that buying the Jewish book of those who served would be the same straightforward transaction.

I think it is possibly a good thing that I didnt know, because I regarded this as a simple consumer matter and took it to my credit card company.

[Moonraker]

... I was quite unaware of any previous thread, in spite of searching the Great War Forum. Of course I searched. I have been a member since about 2002.

About a month ago spending quite a long time, and again today more briefly I did a search for Forces War Records, even putting the term in quotes and nothing came up that seemed to be about this. I also tried varying with an apostrophe...

Googling " Forces War Records Invisionzone" brings up a couple of past threads. Often I've found this approach takes me to what I'm looking for on GWF.

Moonraker

[E Wilcock]

Googling " Forces War Records Invisionzone" brings up a couple of past threads. Often I've found this approach takes me to what I'm looking for on GWF.

Moonraker

Thank you Moonraker. I should have thought of Google as Google finds things on Riding forums too.

[archangel9]

These might be of interest -

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=188014&hl=%2Bforces+%2Brecords

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=192428&hl=%2Bforces+%2Brecords

John

[Guest]

google this and you should find a number of threads

forces war records site:1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums

Mike

[keithmroberts]

One thing that I think should be said.

Services do change, and as mentioned elsewhere items like the burnt series are no longer going to be exclusively under the control of Ancestry. FWR so far as I could see were definitely far from a good deal when we discussed them before, so I wouldn't recommend them, but their offer has probably developed just as others have.

Maybe someone who is using them regularly will offer some recent experience. I wouldn't go there at the present time myself, but the various on-line offers are changing very quickly, so in fairness I would hesitate to say never.

Keith

[timbo58]

Hello Mr Wilcock, I can't see any PM on the forum so I trust any issues are all sorted out now?

If not, please let me know by PM and I'll sort it out personally for you, my apologies for any unintended renewal.

There is indeed a direct email and postal address shown in the terms and FAQs on the site, we do not have a customer telephone number however at present, support responses are typically less than 12 hours at our busiest times and the online system (as well as a live chat facility) really does work very well.

Just to clarify a few things:

We are indeed transcribing what we can be found of the surviving MH106 records, it will take some time and we'll release these in batches and make appropriate press releases as this happens, it's a useful resource and we've received quite a lot of feedback and help from many people on this, I appreciate that it will be helpful to some people more than others.

We are not 'partnering' with TNA on this project, nor are they exclusive to us - frankly I don't know where this information comes from?

We have, of course communicated quite a lot about this collection with TNA and already gathered a very large number of images for work to start imminently.

At present (I am not ruling out changes in the future however) we 'transcribe' records -we do not show original documentation unless it is the sort of background material we have in our 'historic documents collection' (such as the aforementioned Jewry book of honour), so any images we use are still 'owned' by TNA and we will not be able to show these on the site.

I think that's where 'exclusivity' comes in per se -because as far as I understand it, TNA require a fee every time a record image they own is viewed, this necessitates some sort of credits/pay per view system and makes it a lot more complicated.

TNA have a tough balancing act in dealing with commercial organisations-and they deal with it well IMHO, as the documents usability/findability is enhanced and TNA retains the ownership of the images which are then preserved permanently.

On my visits to Kew, some of the even relatively recent stuff (FEPOW mainly) I've seen is falling apart and I'd give it less than a year before even more names and details crumble into the box files dust!

If an image isn't kept, transcribed, indexed etc -it's lost for good, with the best will in the world TNA doesn't have the resources to digitise everything and would probably never manage too justify it to her Majesty's loyal Taxpayers either.

The large mainstream sites may not think that collections such as MH106 are worthy of their resources either, this leaves either individual volunteers or groups of the same or commercial niche people like us, and I am always interested in what those 'in the know' believe should be recorded in some way -we don't want to tread on voluntary groups toes or put anyones noses out of joint -but there really is a demand for certain collections and we really do have the sort of people to do these collections justice and make them available to all.

It may well be that we are able, in the spirit of cooperation, to offer the master indexes to TNA to aid those wishing to find anything within this collection once we have completed our work, as Sue says, it would be nigh on impossible to find them without an index.

This is a big project for what is a very small specialist company (in comparison with other commercial sites), staff have been taken on specifically to do this, we've had training courses for them of the types of abbreviations/medical language used and the specific challenges handwritten records brings.

All of those staff are employed in one of our offices in Melksham, accuracy is absolutely fundamental and we have dedicated staff just for ensuring this, it's always tempting to get 'transcription' done abroad (Is that what everyone else does?) but we know full well this would destroy accuracy, an inaccurate cheap record isn't what we are after here.

I am hoping, genuinely, that many of the planned changes we are making to the site will enable more people to feel happier using it -one of the biggest I'm pushing for is an advancement from our 'collections list' pages where now even individual records will show exactly where the information was gleaned and even which part of each record is on more than one original source, it would clearly show this and where a record is made of several sources (especially where those sources can also be then viewed in the online collection) possibly give some reassurance that certain facts were reliable.

[E Wilcock]

For the record. I should like to thank Timbo38 for responding to this thread, for contacting me privately and for arranging the outstanding refund to my card. I am grateful that he has recognised and looked into the problem that arose when I as a non-member made a purchase from the site. I understand that changes are being made to the site to make the situation clearer and other alterations are under discussion, as mentioned above, including hopefully the sale of digital books to non-members.

For me this was purely a credit card problem and from my point of view it has been sorted.

I did not read the previous threads. Because I think we researchers need to deal with the here and now. But I am grateful to this Forum for its help in sorting the problem.

I was very glad to purchase the pdf of the British Jewry Book of Honour, am grateful to FWR for doing the work entailed to make this book available. I live in London and know where to find copies of this book in one or two libraries, but that is not true of everyone. I would be prepared to buy from them on line again.

[Kitty55]

Hi All

I use both Ancestry and FMP frequently as a local & family historian and lately have found that FMP (findmypast) is proving to be the best overall as it is now offering old newspaper information as well - it's never ceases to amaze me what the papers can tell you simply by either filling out a story more or pointing you in the right direction when dealing with similar names from the same place.

Having said that Ancestry has the best family trees - so I guess it all depends on how much research has already been completed on the person you are looking up.

On many occasions when I've been unable to find a war record on Ancestry I've found it on FMP and of course it works the other way round too.

I also belong to the FWR but find their site useless 9 out of 10 times unless you know the force/regiment or service number of your soldier - fine if they died in the war (most can be found out via other sites) but not if they came home.

The other good news for me was that FMP bought origins.net on 17th June this year and so I no longer need to subscribe to origins.net

Even though FMP has newspaper listings I still belong to the British Newspaper site as it's a lot easier to search when doing town history rather than people.

I don't know if the above is of any help to anyone but using the sites I know what they hold.

Even though I'm a trained researcher I still find all the sites frustrating at times but that is usually a fault of the data bases capabilities - i.e. in the beginning I only took out a British membership on FMP and have been trying to update it to World - something you'd think would be easy. But No - failed again tonight - Why my card has one too many numbers for their slot - another data base problem me thinks? - I await their email to yet another of mine - which as time passes (over 4 months now and I was one of their first members several years ago) get more irate I admit - but then you'd think if someone was willing to pay they would be allowed too.

thanks and take care, Kitty

Edited 28 June , 2014 by Kitty55

[Kitty55]

For all those having problems paying via Data Cash i.e. findmypast membership - there is an answer even if it's frustrating.

Having praised findmypast I then tried to update my membership from British to World and found that I could only type in 15 digits from my card instead of 16. After several attempts and then emails and a comment on Facebook I ended up phoning them to see if they'd take a payment over the phone.

NO. was the answer from quite a rude young man who said I was using the wrong browser and my temp file folder must be full - so I tried 4 different browsers and checked my temp file folder - none worked and my temp file was, as I'd thought empty.

My daughter living only 2 miles away (but with a better connection than offered where I live) said she'd try it from hers - yes it worked.

I left a suitable comment on Facebook stating that if they wanted customers this was not the way to go about it and that having enquired with BT (my internet provided) found it quite a common problem with Data Cash, the banking firm that findmypast now uses if you don't and can't get a connection of over 2MB. The area where I live will not have this until 2017 at the earliest even though just up the road now has over 5.4MB - I'm on a different connection - just my luck.

Findmypast's latest comment on Facebook is they are now looking into it and also suggesting to head office to providing an alternative way to pay as I suggested i.e. PayPal, money booker etc.

I await their answer with interest.

Needless to say I've ticked the continuous membership box so I don't have this problem all over again next year.

It's strange that when they first went online (several years ago) and I joined (I had an invite as a local historian to help them ensure they had certain address listed correctly) my card's 16 digits worked but this year they don't - perhaps this happens when things get too big to quick or perhaps a little to secure than appropriate!

I have posted this here in the hope that anyone else who is having trouble doesn't give up too quick - to every problem there is an answer somewhere. You just have to keep searching. So if you're last digit doesn't go in - try the local library, a friend elsewhere or somewhere with a better connection as this may be the problem.

thanks and take care, Kitty

Edited 30 June , 2014 by Kitty55

[Kitty55]

Hi

just to update what the findmypast site offers - they now offer this included in a year's membership to their World annual sub instead of just the British one. - I don't know if it's for everyone or whether they are offering it to me for the problems I had with entering my card details (made a complaint on Facebook and got instant reply & help - amazing) - either way I'll make full use of it - I can assure you.

Their message was as follows -

Dear Kitty

We are delighted to let you know that we are now including 12 months free access to our newest partner site, Imperial War Museum’s Lives of the First World War, as part of your annual findmypast subscription.

Just thought some of you might like to know.

thanks and take care, Kitty

[Guest]

Is Lives of the First World War not free anyway?

Mike

[Kitty55]

no idea - just thought I'd post about it.

I've never been able to get into where I'm allowed to go as of two days ago when I joined it using the special code I was given.

thanks and take care, Kitty

[ss002d6252]

The site is free but access to some record sets is only by subscription to the holding company e.g. FMP or the N/A.

craig