Record Hints - are suggestions confined to particular collections?

LegacyUser

Paul said: Anyone familiar to my moans and groans on this forum will know I have regularly commented upon the huge amount of irrelevant hints that find their way onto my relatives' Person pages.

So what I don't understand is why I am not being presented with hints that are extremely likely to belong to them. Take the example below - why don't the top two sources appear under Research Help on Noah's page? (See L5RR-9DH)

Would someone please confirm whether certain collections are excluded from the process? Thanks.

(BTW - have held back from adding the birth & death sources for now.)

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: I seem to remember that certain records, because of problems with the indexes, were temporarily removed from the hinting system.

LegacyUser

Brian Jensen said: Yes, not all Record Collections are included in our Record Hint system. The England and Wales Birth and Death Registration Indexes are 2 that we've excluded. These collections have limited data to match on and as a result they create a higher percentage of bad hints.

LegacyUser

Adrian Bruce said: Thanks Brian for the response - and not just the basic fact, but an interesting reason. I suppose that it is probably all to easy for us to see a rare name and think that must be a match (because it is!) while not appreciating the issue with, say, John Jones born in London....

LegacyUser

Paul said: Yes, thanks for the response, Brian - especially in specifying these particular collections ARE excluded. However, I hope you will appreciate my surprise (without knowing this detail) that sources were not being offered for a person (Noah Webster Wrightson) who appears to have no matches at all in England. (Try a search for Noah Wrightson at https://www.freebmd.org.uk/)

Contrast that with the number of John WRIGHT record hints (sometimes up to 25 christenings or marriages, covering the whole of England) I get placed against my John WRIGHTSON relatives, who already have county-specific detail (vitals) inputted against their respective IDs!

I believe there are many other ways that a "high(er) percentage of bad hints" are finding their way to my relatives's pages. Primarily, by means of the extremely "loose" algorithm that causes me so many hours of extra work (I.e. in having to dismiss up to 90% of the irrelevant hints that are finding their way through and that do not even relate to the same surname, or even the same century).