Adventures on Genealogy Using Ancestry.com

 Week 2

 

Searching

Keep research notes on what you search for and your success

Search Form

            Enter as much information as you know

            First and Middle Name, Last Name

            Name a place your ancestor may have lived

            Birth Place

            Birth Year-

Use the calculate Box next to birth year

He/she was —–age in (year)   (OK)

Advanced Search:

Any Event:

            Birth, Marriage, Death, Lived IN

            More-Arrival, Departure, Military

Add Family Member:

            Father, Mother, Sibling, Spouse, Child

Gender-Male/Female

Race Nationality

Key Word- Revolutionary soldier, occupation, etc

Check or Uncheck: Historical Records, Stories and Publications, Family Trees, Photos and Maps

Collection Focus:

All Collections, Countries, States, Ethnicity (African American, Native American, Jewish

Categories-listed on right side of screen

Exact Searches and Default Settings

            Names: Match All Terms Exactly-or use- Sounds Like, similar, initials

            Dates: Exact to this date, +/- 1 yr, 2 yrs, 5 yr, 10 years

Explore by Locations:

             USA, UK and Ire, Europe, Canada, Austrailia, New Zealand

Auto ill-when you begin entering a location program starts suggesting places with that name

Recent Additions

Find Others Researching (whomever you searched for)

WILDCARDS

Wild cards are special characters one can use in search fields such as name and location to enhance a search.

Can use an asterisk (*)  or a question mark (?)

However, the first OR last character must be an actual letter

An asterisk replaces multiple characters

A question mark replaces only a single character

When using a wild card you must have at least 3 letters plus the wildcard

*ou or ?ou will not work                    *oud  or  ?oud will work

B*ett will work       B?rnett will work

SEARCH FILTERS

Filters can increase or decrease relevant search results

Each time you delete a field (like a state name) it broadens the research

When you get too many results, add more search information

            When looking for a person who is a parent-add spouse and children

When you get too few results decrease the search information provided

When looking for a person and you get too few results, delete a wife or child, or date or place

Use sliders from Broad to Exact or Exact to Broad to get better results

Sliders can be used on all collections

Use categories/collections to filter results:

Use advanced search

When searching normally you’ll see categories on left under sliders with hit numbers

Choose a category that seems like a potentially interesting hit and click on

Searching State Collections:

In advanced search see Explore by Location at bottom of page

Click on any state to see all databases associated with that state, a history of that state and other research resources for that state. Options are located on the tabs at the top of the state page

Under each state you can see lists of databases for that state.

            Click on a database

            There will be a new search page specific to that database

Lower on page will be a history and other assorted information and articles about researching in that state

Under resources tab is an overview of how to research in that state such as censuses, libraries, archives, when vital records keeping began

WHY SEARCHES FAIL

• Record errors

• Transcription errors

• The record may not exist

• The record is not online

SEARCH STRATEGIES

Searching for an ancestor with a Common Surname

• Collect all information possible on your ancestor-censuses, military, marriage(s), children, migrations, education, residences, jobs, family events, land purchases, court appearances, death, burial, etc

• Follow the person via the census trail-each census during his life

• Gather as much information about the ancestors’ siblings and their children. Make a family group sheet for every family

• You might hope your common surnamed ancestor married a spouse with an uncommon surname. Follow that family.

Searching for maiden names of female ancestors

• Records that include maiden names include:

  1. Marriage Records

  2. Military Pensions

  3. Headstones

  4. Censuses

  5. Church Memberships

  6. Wills-particularly the wife’s family

  7. Death Certificates

  8. Naming Patterns

  9. Obituaries

Searching Nicknames

            Many lists of nicknames are on line-Cyndislist.com

When Records are found:

            View the record

            Save the Record

            Correct Errors

Viewing A Record (tools):

            View Index-typed index with information on record

            View Source: see a pop-up box with information about the record collection

Image Controls:

            Rotate or Flip Image or invert colors (white to black/white or reverse)

            Enhanced images-try to sharpen up images

Saving Records:

            Save a record to someone in your tree or to your shoebox

            Be sure to save the record to the correct person due to autofill

            You can delete a record no longer needed from shoebox at will

Correcting a Record;

            In left column under tools

            Click on the view/add alternate info (pencil) to make corrections

I’M RELATED TO ROYALTY OR SOMEONE FAMOUS:

From Ancestry’s “Search” form to find family trees of famous people or royals

Some have sources, some do not

USING ANCESTRY’S CARD CATALOGUE

The card catalogue search is really a database search, not a search for an individual

The Main Page:

            The link to the card catalogue is at the bottom of the drop down under “Search”

            Catalogue contains a list of all databases on Ancestry.com

            The right column has the names of databases

            The left column has title and key word search boxes, as well as some filters

            The default view is the right column-list of all databases sorted by popularity

            Note the records column displays the number of records in the database and the Activity column indicates if a database has been recently updated

            You can change the default view by clicking the down arrow next to sort by and selecting the Sort By Database Title, Date Up Dated, Added, or Record Count

            In left column on main catalogue page there are two search boxes

            One is for database title and the other keyword(s)

            You can type in a place in database title –by hovering over this title ancestry will give a short description of the database

            Use Keyword search for a type of record-railroad, occupation, draftcard, etc

Basics on Card Catalogue Filters (Four Sets of Filters)

• Filter by Collection

• Filter by Location

• Filter by dates (century or decade)

• Filter by Language

Using Card Catalogue Filters

            Filter by collection, locate, date to narrow down search, then by a breakdown of a subset of databases

Searching a Database from the Card Catalogue

            After filtering down to the desired database, right click mouse on the desired database and select “Open in New Tab”

If you don’t do it this way, you will have start your filtered search over

By opening in a new tab, you can see the new database, you can return to the search when finished

            If you open a new window you will constantly be opening new windows and possibly loose track of which ones you want open

            Now that you have a desired open tab, research the database normally.

Searching a Database From the Card Catalogue

Click on the database name, then redo all filters to return to your search list

Non-People Specific Databases

            Ships (under immigration) , atlases, postcards (under pictures),

Censuses and Voter Lists

 Birth, Marriage, Death

Military

Immigration and Travel

Newspapers and Publications

Pictures

Stories, Memories and Histories

Maps, Atlases, Gazetteers

Schools, Directories, Church Histories

Tax, Criminal, Land and Wills

Reference, Dictionaries, and Almanacs