Improve Profile Comparisons?

Question

Is it possible to improve the profile-matching tool? (The "magnifying glass" on a profile page.)

I'm working on colonial John Rogers-- at least two of them-- he of Duxbury and he of Weymouth. There are a lot of dupes here. But the problem is that the name is so common that the compare page can't list them all. It's listing all sorts of John Rogers that aren't even close to a match because it appears that the tool isn't sorting results with most likely matches first.

Any way to improve that? Rank the results in some way?

Many thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Jillaine,

We're often introducing improvements to our search systems. In fact, one just got released today.

Part of the problem with the method of search you're using is that it doesn't offer strictness options. It uses default settings and you can't adjust them to make the results broader or narrower.

To use the range of options, you currently need to use FindMatches.

Enter Rogers-750 in the "limit to one person" field.

Chris

Comments

Thanks for the pointer to this other match-finder. Just out of curiosity, why isn't this "FindMatches" search tool used for the "magnifying glass" tool from a profile page? (Chris: I warned you I know just enough "tech" to be trouble.)  ;-)

---

Mmm... I'm using "Find Matches" as you suggested; I went with the "plus or minus 2 years" but I'm getting results of people 200 years older than the person I'm trying to find matches for (Rogers-750)-- i.e., the same results as I get when I select the "magnifying glass" link. What am I doing wrong? Thanks.

---

Jillaine, try selecting the "Skip people without dates" option, or unchecking the "ignore century typos" option.

It's the same FindMatches tool from the magnifying glass, it's just showing you results instead of all the search options. We should be able to improve upon that.