How to Add a Name in Ancestry.com Family Tree
Jump to:
A. by Name
B. past Location
C. by Appointment
D. by Family Member
E. by Keyword
F. by Gender and Race/Nationality
Yard. by Collection Focus
Refining Your Search Results
– H. Sliders
– I. Category Filters
Genealogy website Beginnings.com offers flexible searching of its massive databases—just if y'all don't how to manipulate those options, they're useless to yous. Then let'due south modify our family history race route to include some additional training on the site's search grade. In this commodity adjusted from the new second edition of my book, the Unofficial Guide to Ancestry.com, I'll share the all-time ways to reach into the site's record collections and pull out important clues about your ancestors' lives.
E (Keyword) F (Gender and Race/Nationality) One thousand (Collection Focus)
When you first log in to Beginnings.com, you'll see the search course. You as well can access this form at any fourth dimension hither or by clicking the Search tab on the navigation bar at the meridian of whatever folio, and so choosing All Collections from the dropdown menu.
If you're lucky, a search on a name and birth twelvemonth will immediately hit the jackpot, with that ancestor's census record or volition first in the search results. Only more likely, the search volition yield thousands of results requiring valuable fourth dimension to slog through. You need to enter more information and allow for uncertain spellings and years of nativity and expiry. To do that, click Show more Options near the lesser of the search grade (you may already see these options, depending how you've used Ancestry.com in the past). Allow's get through each part of the search form and discuss how best to employ it in your search. As you follow along, log in to your Ancestry.com account and attempt searches for someone in your family.
A. by Proper name
Enter your antecedent's beginning, centre (if you know it) and final names. You'll discover that when y'all enter a name in either field, the word "exact" appears below with a checkbox. Click that word and several filter options pop up. These let you specify how broad you desire to search. No filters checked is the broadest search, which is a expert starting bespeak, or cheque i or more of these filters:
- Exact: Find only records with the names exactly as you typed them.
- Sounds Like: This uses various algorithms to find records with names like to what you typed.
- Like: This pick finds records with common variant spellings and alternate forms of the proper noun you lot typed, including mutual nicknames for given names. It's also a good idea to endeavour separate searches with nicknames instead of given names, especially any unusual ones.
- Soundex (surname only): This finds surname variants that have the same Soundex system code as the i you typed (read about the system at the National Archives).
- Initials (first/middle proper name only): This includes records that take only starting time and/or middle initials matching the name you lot typed. The name fields let you lot search with wildcard characters to observe variants. The * represents zero to five characters; the ? represents one character. You lot tin can use a wild bill of fare for the first or last letter, just non both, and names must contain at least three not-wildcard messages.
If you accept a family tree on Ancestry.com, the site may endeavour to autofill the class with a person from your family tree. For example, when I start typing the proper noun Calvin into the Get-go and Heart Names box, Ancestry.com suggests Calvin Manlieus Dimmitt from my tree. If the suggested person isn't the person yous want to discover, ignore it and continue typing the proper noun you demand.
If the suggestion is the person you're searching for, click the proper noun to autofill the search boxes with the person's proper name, nascence date and place, family unit members' names, etc. You then can modify or remove the content in each field, depending what you're looking for. If yous want a married woman's death record, for example, delete her maiden proper noun from the search box. If yous're searching for census records from her childhood, remove her married proper noun, too as her spouse's and children'southward names from the family members expanse of the search grade (which nosotros'll discuss in a bit).
Try running multiple searches with the names entered in different ways. For example, if your ancestor's name was John Albert Johnson, you may accept to type the proper noun as John Johnson, John Albert Johnson, J. Johnson or J.A. Johnson. I've as well seen people listed on censuses with the middle proper noun start, or past but a eye name. Equally you lot do more searches, you'll become more expert at spotting potential name anomalies.
Ancestry.com may return records that don't match the first name y'all typed in, merely strongly friction match other criteria included in your search. If a result matches all criteria save the name, it'southward worth taking a closer wait at the record.
B. by Location
Our ancestors moved around more than than nosotros might realize, and their records may give different places of birth or refer to the same place with unlike names. So information technology's helpful to allow for location variations when searching for people in records. Once you begin typing a location name in Ancestry.com'due south search form, the "place picker" will serve up suggested place names to aid you cull the location assigned in Beginnings.com'due south indexes. Choose a suggested identify, or you won't get search results.
Similar the name fields, filling location fields as well brings up filters that permit you lot narrow your search. No filters checked is your broadest selection: Information technology'll render any records matching your other criteria, with those that also lucifer this place prioritized at the superlative of the listing. Or you tin can cheque one of the filters to narrow your matches to records from
- exactly the identify you entered
- exactly the county where the place is located the county where the place is located plus surrounding counties
- the state where the identify you entered is located
- the state and adjacent states
- the country where the identify you entered is located
Adding a "Identify your ancestor might have lived" helps focus your search. You also can add together places where other life events, such as nascency or death, happened by clicking on that consequence in the "Add issue" area. Click Lived In to add some other identify the person might've lived. Click More to add a port of arrival or divergence (if you're searching clearing records), or place of military service. If you click Whatsoever Event, your search volition return records in which the person named has any life upshot occurring in the location you entered.
C. by Date
Adding a nascency year to your Ancestry.com searches can help you lot distinguish amid records of people who had similar names and lived in nearby places. This is particularly helpful if your ancestor had a mutual name, or if some other family unit of the aforementioned surname also lived in his customs. Do you know an ancestor'south age, but non a nascence year? Click the calculator icon to effigy out an ancestor'due south nativity year based on how old he was in a item twelvemonth (such as during a U.s.a. demography).
You've probably noticed that our ancestors oft were inconsistent virtually their ages and birth dates in genealogical records. Many weren't overly concerned with keeping rails of their ages. Some people didn't know their own birthdays, particularly in the years before official birth records were kept. And, just as with names, whoever wrote down a person's birth date or historic period on a record might get it wrong. The search form's date fields offer filters to help you find records in which your ancestor'due south nativity engagement is off by 1, two, 5 or x years in either direction from the year you entered. You too tin can search for records with exactly the year yous entered.
If you're searching for a relative's death records, click Death nether Add Result, and enter the twelvemonth of death. You tin add a appointment range, just as for a birth year. If you're searching for census, marriage or other records—but not death records—it's best to exit this field blank. That's because nigh records near your ancestor were created while he was alive, and won't contain anything in the expiry field.
If you don't use any engagement ranges, your results will include records from all years, with the closest matches to other criteria ranked highest. To become more-manageable results, it's of import that you add a appointment for at to the lowest degree some life consequence, even if it'southward just an educated gauge.
D. by Family Fellow member
This section of the search form allows you lot to add the proper name of a family unit member who's likely to appear in documents such as censuses, passenger lists and vital records forth with your relative. This could be a parent, sibling, spouse or child. Click the relationship to add the person's name. When you enter a proper noun, an Exact box appears below the field. If you check it, you'll see only results in which that proper noun appears in the record along with your target relative. If y'all don't check information technology, results containing the proper noun you enter will rank college in your results.
Adding a family member is especially helpful when working with ancestors who have common names. Or if you're searching for an ancestor's marriage record, add the spouse to your search (use a adult female's maiden proper noun). You also tin can utilise this section of the search class to find records of children built-in to a couple: Enter the names of an ancestral couple in the fields for Mother and Father, leaving the main start and last name fields blank. Try both a maiden and married name for the mother, equally nascence records might give the proper noun either style.
E. by Keyword
The Keyword box is some other way of filtering for better results. For instance, if you know that you're seeking a person who served in the armed forces during the Revolutionary War, enter revolutionary state of war. (It's not necessary to capitalize words in the search boxes.) Putting quotation marks effectually keywords ("revolutionary war") tells Beginnings.com that exact phrase must announced in records matching your search.
F. by Gender and Race/Nationality
These fields allow you specify the gender and race or nationality associated with the person yous're searching for. The latter field has an Exact checkbox. It'south ordinarily best to leave these options bare, as they're less of import than other fields in narrowing your search. Using these fields may, in fact, filter out relevant records that didn't happen to specify these fields. That said, typing a general race or nationality, such equally German or black may assist when you're searching for clearing or census records, in which these details might be recorded.
Thou. by Collection Focus
The terminal section of the search form lets you target your search more precisely by narrowing results to sure collections. As Ancestry.com increases its international content, this is a handy way to view only records related to your ancestors' places. A dropdown bill of fare lets you select a item place or an ethnicity (blackness, Jewish or Native American—groups for which records often cross national boundaries). I encourage you to use this selection if you know where a person lived. For instance, if an ancestor lived his entire life in Canada, select Canada as the collection focus to render simply records that are identified as Canadian records. Optionally, you can choose All Collections. If your ancestor lived in multiple places (such equally outset in the United Kingdom, and then Canada, and then the United States), endeavor doing multiple searches, each with a unlike drove focus.
At the lesser of the search form, you'll run into checkboxes past four collection types:
- Historical Records: censuses, passenger lists, draft registrations and other records
- Stories & Publications: newspapers, published family unit histories and stories attached to public family trees
- Family Trees: profiles in family trees other Beginnings.com members have posted (if the tree is private, you can message the person through Beginnings.com)
- Photos & Maps: images (not necessarily just photographs) attached to family unit trees, as well as gazetteers and maps
Check the box next to each type of record yous want searched. Y'all might want to see only documents, for example, or you might be hoping for a photo of your slap-up-granddad. If you lot're just starting your search, leave all the boxes checked to get as many results every bit possible, then refine your search to eliminate what you don't find helpful.
Refining Your Search Results
After you've looked through a few search results, you might want to try a proper name variant, broaden the birth twelvemonth range or brand another aligning. Yous tin do this without returning to the search form by using the tools at the top left:
H. Sliders
The sliders (located under the Search Filters heading) let you quickly broaden or narrow search fields including first and last name, places of life events, and date ranges of life events. Slide right to narrow, left to augment. When you lot hover over each position on the slider, a popular-up will bear witness you the settings for the position. Click Update to apply the new filters to your search results. When I search for my grandad Herschel Hendrickson, born in 1888 and living in Missouri, I get more than 86,000 results when all sliders are on the broadest setting. If I move the name and nascency year filters to the correct, I narrow this to just iv results—and all are for Grandfather.
To change your search terms and add new ones, click on Edit Search. The search form opens with your electric current terms; brand any changes and click Search to see your new results. To start over with a cleared form, click New Search.
I. Category Filters
Some other way of filtering is to confine results to specific categories (also called collections). To the left of your search results, underneath the sliders and the All Categories heading, you'll see filters for categories of records. Find a category that interests y'all and click on it. Your search results change to bear witness only records in that category. The filter list changes to show any subcategories, which yous also can click on to further narrow your results—correct downwardly to the titles of specific collections.
Keep in listen that if you utilise a category filter and and then Click Edit Search, the search class options y'all see will be specific to the category you've practical. Immigration records, for instance, by and large don't name relationships among those in the records, so the search form for the Immigration and Emigration category doesn't take fields for adding family members.
A version of this article appeared in the March/April 2018 issue of Family Tree Magazine.
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