It likely flew under your radar, but there’s a change at Findmypast.
Most recently, as of Friday, there is a revamped FMP Friday Live session renamed to The Family History Show with Findmypast.
The format will now alternate — one week, a happy chat on what’s happening in the wider family history world, as seen from the UK with hosts Ellie and Liam. The alternate week has Jen or Rose as host in a “deep dive into records.”
You’ve likely noticed that FMP releases fewer new records than previously. This past week, it was 24,453 records; before that, it was “over 28,000” and 19,990. Ancestry and MyHeritage British updates typically contain many more new records.
The change in Friday format may reflect the struggle to scrape together enough records to discuss. To be fair, there are more substantial newspaper additions each week, but see the comment below.
Another sign of trouble is that each weekly announcement provides less detail on the additions. Not so long ago, when an addition was made to BMD records, the updated parish appeared with a NEW tag in the county parish list. No longer.
Although adding newspapers to the British Newspaper Archive and FMP is healthy, much of the material is from issues that are likely born digital, so it is less costly to add.
I speculate this reflects the financial issues of the parent company, D. C. Thomson. The latest information I could find, its 31 March 2023 financial report, showed losses from publication activities. Assets are being sold, and some publications are discontinued.
Revenue from genealogy operations was flat following a bounce from COVID and the release of the 1921 census of England and Wales. Is less being invested in acquiring new records? There appear to be no plans to add major new collections.
Findmypast is still a major asset for the genealogical community, but it is less so than previously. I wonder whether D. C. Thomson might be ready to spin off or sell FMP. MyHeritage?
All I nioticed just that FMP got wierd. Cheers, BT
If they have to sell, I’d far prefer it go to Ancestry than MH. It would be sad to see FMP disappear – especially since they revamped the newspapers to make it more user friendly and introduced the Collections feature. I know better than to ever rely on any online site to remain active forever, so still download and back up any newspaper stories I need, but it would be a shame to have the online portal disappear.
Not that I am such a fan of ancestry.com but I am definitely not a fan of MH. Ancestry is too expensive for me any more so I guess it really doesn’t matter. I wish I could afford to subscribe to one of them, FMP would be my choice for the research I’m doing now. I need to remind myself that familysearch is free. That’s where I started so many years ago.