Ancestry records search - Dates?!?!?
This is probably one of the most frustrating things about using ancestry... why on earth would it show search results for records dated more than a century after someone’s death date? Like city directories, birth records,obituaries etc? What’s the purpose of adding dates to the search if it’s bot gonna omit irrelevant results? Does anyone else have this problem or am I clearly doing something wrong? Lol
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@X24mom X24mom - I know what you mean. It seems like no one really hits that happy medium that we would all like. As far as Ancestry goes - mark the search with all exact matches and then just know that somewhere down the list the real matches will peter out and you will be out fishing in the pond. The one strong point for Ancestry is that in casting their wide net you often catch the matches that are good but not high ranking matches. Now FamilySearch is the opposite - their returns are very tight and you often don't get hits when the record is right there because the algorithm just won't return the record as a match.
I find it ironic that I often have to go to Ancestry and cast a wide net to find a record - study it to see how it might be transcribed. Then go back to FS and do a search designed to bring that specific record up. I have to do this because FS just won't return the record with a regular search. They are working on this - they have widened their returns recently and you can now search with multiple names (like maiden and married last names for women - yea). But finding things can still be challenging.
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If I dont see any close matches on the top of the search results - - than I just pretty much ignore the rest of the results/
I understand its a bit confusing/unintuitive - but just ignore them. Close matches should always be on top - so if there are no close matches on top - just ignore the entire result set (if you are looking for close matches) - no need to wade through all the results.
Now if you find that close matches are NOT on top - then report it as a bug. but that shouldnt happen
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I think FamilySearch does the same thing
you can put whatever search range you want - but Family Search will show partial matches that fall outside of the date range
but full matches (within the date range) should always show on the top of your results.
so if they dont - dont think that endless scrolling through all the results will at some oint show a matching range - they shoudl be on the top of your query results.
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