When I do a search ...

LBartsch

When I do a search for information on specific person is every possible record source searched of is it limited? For instance… I search for a person and don't find them in the results. Is it worth the tie and effort to do another search in a specific geographic location or was that already done was par too then first search?

Áine Ní Donnghaile

There are so many record sets, in so many geographic locations, on FamilySearch, that I find it much more effective to search in a specific database or location.

For example, if I'm working on my family in Chicago, I start from the Illinois search page. For my Irish ancestors, I start from the Ireland collection page. If I get too many results, I may narrow my search to Chicago Deaths or Ireland Civil Registration.

FamilySearch offers free online classes on the basics of searching and using the website. Most are available live and also recorded, if you are not available to watch live. On 26 Sep, there will be a "Searching on FamilySearch" class.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/FamilySearch_Library_Classes_and_Webinars

Hope this helps.

Adrian Bruce1

The order that FS returns answers in is not necessarily the order that you "need" - or expect. You might look at the first 200 answers and say, "They're not there". But the next screen might contain them.

Gordon Collett

Also, keep in mind that the search results are dependent of the search parameters you enter. Not only that, the search engine sometimes treats terms very broadly such as when searching for Hansen includes Hansdatter and other times treats terms very narrowly such as when searching for Anna will not include a single Anne.

Then you have to cope with the fact that the indexes which are being searched are partial transcriptions of the actual records and the accuracy of the transcription is dependent on the indexer. You have to get creative and think of all possible errors that could have been made such as when a census record that clearly had my grandfather's last name written as Jakes was transcribed in the index as Joker.

I have found that searching works best when you:

1. Narrow your criteria appropriately. For example, don't search for all records in the entire world when all you are searching for is a birth record in Sweden. Narrow the search to just births and just Sweden.
2. Don't include extraneous information. For example, when searching for that birth record in Sweden, do not include the person's marriage date. That will ruin your search.
3. Broaden your criteria appropriately. For example if you are searching for Anne Svensdatter, it is often best after you have narrowed your search to the smallest area and smallest time period you can, to search for A* S* in order to try and catch as many spelling variants of Anne and Svensdatter as you can.

LBartsch

thank you all for responding. It confirms my suspicion that a more concise search parameters are needed.

MandyShaw1

The search capability is extraordinarily lacking in functionality. Why no ability to specify results sort order, or to omit instead of select, or to ask for results that genuinely have no value in a particular field? And why is the behaviour of exact search on place/date range so unintuitive? It's often easier to export the whole lot to a spreadsheet and search that.

(And P.S., what exactly is the definition of the 'Other' bucket on Family Tree search? So far, I have spotted Other Relationships, and parents of a child where there is no corresponding Couple Relationship in place in FT.)