Tips for searching through family search records???
I've been encountering this problem a lot lately. I'm trying to do research for people who need vital places, proof of parentage, birthdate, etc. and I'm struggling to find anything. It's difficult for me to use the information I already have to filter results because I never know when I'm being too specific or if I'm just using the search tools incorrectly. Does anyone have tips to help them find the right records more quickly?
Answers
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Can you give one specific example of a person you have tried working on and what you are trying to find? There are plenty of tips out there but most of them are going to be based on the specific time and place.
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Maybe this is what you want
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My main tip is to search for one record at a time. You can be fortunate in finding birth, marriage and death records all on one Results page, but more often than not I remove dates and places for, say, the birth and death of an individual, to make it easier to find a marriage. Same goes for the other events being sought, of course.
Other than that, try not to be too specific, even if you know where the event took place. For example, even though I might know my relative died in Halifax, Yorkshire around 1935, I would just input "Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom" to the Death Place field (FamilySearch indexed records sometimes omit the specific place name and the name of the registration district can be totally different and even be in another county) and 1930 - 1940 for the date range. If you get too many results, then narrow down both the area and date range.
The FamilySearch search algorithms do seem to work a bit strangely, however, whereby sometimes it takes multiple attempts (using different combinations of criteria) before you find what you are looking for and other times you can strike lucky with minimal effort!
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Everyone has favorite ways to search, depending on what we are looking for. I tend to isolate my search to a place first, and then narrow down further when needed.
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Along with suggestions given, I actually start after roughing out a FS person by linking a search from Ancestry. Yes, you'll get lots of relevant and irrelevant source suggestions, but I like the format and they have similar as well as different source databanks to peruse. I run this search in a second side by side window that I may edit the new good information into the FS details page. Once you start filling in proven details the FS algorithms will often find the FS versions of the same sources that you can now link.
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Ok, thanks for all the tips! Gordon Collett, a specific example is Henriette Ulbek Christensen. She has a birthdate as her only vital because most of her records are census records from Denmark, but there isn't any place of birth or death or anything. I could assume she was born in Denmark but I'm not completely sure and would love to find a record to confirm her place of birth or death.
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Let's take Henriette as a case study then and you can see my approach.
First and most importantly is to see what information is already known and what sources are already attached, keeping in mind that it is really helpful to put every bit of significant information found in the original source onto the Family Tree record since the indexed version is usually incomplete and to double check what is in the original since indexes can often have errors.
So there are three census records, 1925, 1925, and 1916. However, there is no residence information from these census records on the Family Tree profile. Adding that could be helpful to make sure you are following the same family through time. Be sure to add the full, correct residence. Do not trust the "standardized" event place name:
Here for example, the "standardized" place name is a church. They were not living there. They were living on Amaliegade (Amalie street). But now what does Horsens, Skanderborg mean? Quick googling these might be names of two different cities Horsens in Horsens municipality or Skanderborg in Skanderborg municipality. I don't know enough Danish geography to answer this off the top of my head. So it is off to research! The place to start is the census itself by scrolling back page by page to find out where this family is actually living. Fortunately, we only have to go back on page to learn they are living at Amaliegate 18 B, in Kloster sogn (a subdivision of a parish), in Horsens kjøbstad (Horsens merchant town). No sign of anything to do with Skanderborg can be seen, so who knows how that got in the index!
Being 1925, I would wonder if that street and number still exist. It's fun to go into Google Maps and see:
Yep. Right there. Now to learn a bit about Horsens: where we learn that it is the administrative center for Horsens municipality. Learning about the municipality, we learn that the municipality did not exist before 1970. Prior to that it sounds like Horsens was just a city not contained in any municipality. Looking in the Places database: https://www.familysearch.org/en/research/places/?focusedId=12318021, it was in the Hundred of Nim in Århus. So the correct entry for the family's residence in 1925 would be Amaliegate 18b, Horsens, Nim, Århus, Denmark.
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On to the rest of the 1925 census information. First names. I find it very suspicious that both Henriette and her husband have the name Ulbek Christensen. It looks like that is her married name. To prevent confusion, I would under Other Information Henriette Ulbek Christensen as a Alternate Name of type Married Name and delete Ulbek Christensen from her main name under vitals.
Next we have her birth date. This record states is it 14 April 1872, not May. So that doesn't get lost, I'd record it in the Reason Statement under her birth information. Then the next column has her birth place. The heading says that what should be entered is Copenhagen, Fredriksberg, the city name, the parish name, or the County. For Henriette is stays what looks like at this point "Handsted." So now to work on what it really says! Back to Google. Googling "Handsted" brings up "Hansted"
which turns out to be just north of Horsens:
That looks encouraging.
The rest of the census has household position, occupation, and such, but nothing more that might help track her backwards in time.
Moving back to the 1921 census, we see the 14 May 1872 birthdate for her, the same birthplace which again looks like Handsted. Going back one page shows they are still at Amaliegade 18b. This residence should also be added to her profile.
The biggest addition to information is that a daughter is listed with birth date and birth place. The first part of her first name "Carli" sounds like a mis-transcription. But I work mainly in Norway. Maybe that is a Danish name. The important part here, is that it will likely be easier to find a 1904 birth record than a 1872 birth record and it is likely to give more complete information, maybe even a marriage date. I'll reserve judgement for now as to whether the date is October 1 or October 7. The 1 on the 10 for the month looks just like the digit for the day.
Then back to the 1916 census. Her Henriette's birth day is back in April and "Carli" Rigmors' birth year is 1905. Again going back a page shows they are still at Amaliegade 18b. No other children so there is a good likelihood they had just the one daughter.
That's all the current sources. Going back in time, the next potential source would be the 1911 census. So I'll go there next.
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If at all possible, it is nearly always preferable to search a specific record set, not the entire FamilySearch database of historical records. It just helps focus the search.
Start by going to the main Search tab and use the Collection search box:
And choose the 1911 census:
I have found that the easiest people to find in the census are children who are just a few years old because they are highly likely to be still be at the place they were born. So I'm not going to search for Henriette or her husband, I'm going to search for Carli Rigmor. The search engine is flexible enough that even if that first name is not Carli, it should be able to find me a good set of variants. Also, last names can be difficult as far as how they were indexed and just how they could change with time. So here is my first search attempt:
Which gives:
But I'm still just not really comfortable that the place name is entered right here in the search or indexed correctly or standardized correctly. So I'm just going to take out the place name all together. Now I get:
And there she is, right at the top. And here is the record: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2W4-9C1V?lang=en which does, like the others, have the image. Be sure to attach this as a source. The prior page in the images again shows the family at Amaliegade 18b. Add that as a residence on the profile to show the continuity of where they were living.
This census has a third vote for Henriette being born in April. The score is now April on three records vs May on one record. Also gives her birth place as Hansted (note the different spelling this time) but also includes the fact that she moved to Horsens in 1883. This is an important fact to enter on her profile. She was only 11 years old then so almost certain to have moved with her family. It also means that she was almost certain to have gotten married in Horsens, not in Hanstad. So depending on when she got married, it might be possible to find her in the 1890 census with her parents.
Here, by the way, Carli Rigmor's name is written clearly enough that I am starting to be convinced that is the correct name.
Going back a step, if the search had not brought up the family right away, I would have tried searching the following name combinations, putting in the appropriate birth year span for the main individual:
- C* with mother Hen*
- Henriette with spouse Peter
- Henriette with spouse Pe*
- Hen* with spouse Peter
- Hen* with spouse Pe*
- Peter Julius with spouse H*
- P* with spouse H* with residence Hor*
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Going farther back in time, there is a census for 1906, just a year or two after Carli Rigmor's birth. To repeat the process:
This is working so well because Carli Rigmor is likely not a very common name. if she had been named Anna, this would have called for a lot more work fiddling with search criteria and adding and subtracting information.
(My son is calling. I'll be back later.)
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