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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Before moving on to the record itself, look at her parents. If you had tried searching for her father Peter Georg, it would have been difficult because he is listed as T G. However the search engine routine is fuzzy enough that it probably would have found him. Some people complain about getting strange results with a search, but that is why it happens. it is trying to compensate for wide variations in the indexes and in the records themselves.
Here is the indexed census record: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QLXW-B41N?lang=en and it is still very nice to see the image.
In the image we can see they are still at Amaliegade 18b so a very stable family. Would not be surprised to learn that that is the house Peter Georg grew up in. But such speculation is too much of a jump to take right now.
Not much new information but do have another vote for Henriette being born in April, not May, and in this census it is quite clear that Carli Rigmor was born Oct 1, not Oct 7. The person writing down the census information has very different 1s and 7s. The 1s have a sharp up sweep and the tops of the 7s are very square.
Even though it is the same, I would again add the residence to their profiles and it is about time to correct the birth dates for Henriette and Carli Rigmor.
Continuing to work backwards, the next family event is Carli Rigmor's birth. Everything so far suggests she was born with birth place of Amaliegade 18b in Kloster parish in Horsens. So the first place to start looking for her is the records for 1905 for that particular parish. If I were working in Norway where I usually do, I would now go to the Norwegian Digital Archives because I can look up that one particular parish record and go directly to the pages for that year. In FamilySearch, all the records for all the parishes are dumped into one big database so it is harder to look at the narrow window I actually want to be looking in. The Danish archives also have an online system that I have not looked at for year, but I think I'll try there anyways.
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Here is the Danish archive system:
And the path I followed:
Now we have a problem Kloster parish only has records going back to 1905. Checking wikipedia: the church was build around 1270. So what about records? Googling that question brings up a result going to the FamilySearch Research Wiki: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Horsens-Kloster_Evangeliske_Parish,_Skanderborg,_Denmark_Genealogy where it states that Kloster parish was divided off from Vår Frelser parish in 1904. So I need to change my search to look for that parish instead:
F for Født - Births. V for Vielser = Marriages.
Going to the births:
Now it is just a matter of scrolling forward page by page or using the left hand page listing to go to October 1904 while hoping for the best. And there she is! And absolutely beautiful handwriting!
Born October 1, 1904. Living at Analigade 18 A, first name Carli Rigmor, last name Ulbæk-Christensen (much clearer than any of the census records), with parents Bager (Baker) Peter Georg Ulbæk-Christensen and Henriette f. (born) Pedersen, age 32.
I'm not going to give a link to this last image so you have to work your way through the website yourself.
Now that we know that what this birth record says exactly, if there is an indexed record at FamilySearch, having this information and working from it will make it much easier to find. Let's do that next.
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Back at FamilySearch, since I now have such a clear understanding of Carli Rigmor's name and because it seems to be an unusual name, it is time to try a blanket search:
Way too many results! Guess the name and it variants are not that uncommon. So I am going to limit this to birth records and add her birth year:
Strangely enough, this only gives me 8 results and they are all parents:
Time to take out search parameters. I'm going to take out her last name, widen the birth year, remove the record type limitation, and add the first part of parent's names with wildcards:
Only 83 results so this is manageable to scan through them all. The first ones are census records. Among those are the ones we already found.
In fact, they are all census records! Not a single birth record. Time to go to the FamilySearch Catalog and see if there is an index for Vor Frelsers parish:
That first entry is for Vor Frelser's parish for 1630 to 1914. Going there it gives two links for searching the records:
But I want to know if the specific book I want is available on FamilySearch so I'll scroll down farther to find:
so unless I'm missing something, the book I want is scanned, but not indexed.
Back at the Danish archive site, there was a note that Ancestry was re-filming all the registers in color (they hadn't gotten to the book Carli Rigmor is in. So maybe Ancestry has an index? I'll go take a look but only show how to find it if there is one.
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They do! (If you don't have an Ancestry account, go to your local FamilySearch center and see if they have an institutional Ancestry account that you can use there.)
"But why," you are probably asking, "do we care? We already have that birth record!" "Because," I reply, "her parents were almost certainly married in that same parish just a couple of years before and since these are indexed, we should be able to find the record quite quickly."
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Unfortunately, after trying multiple searches in Ancestry with a variety of parameters, I'm not finding anything so apparently Ancestry doesn't have an indexes for marriages either. I won't drag you through all of that. So it looks like it is time to do this the very basic way. Go back to the Danish archives and find that link for marriages for 1902 to 1914 V (for Vielser):
Go to the page for October 1904 since you know they were married before that and start going backwards one page at a time. If you get to the first of the register and haven't found them, go back to that list of registers and find the one that has marriages and ends in 1901 or 1902 and search there.
(Before getting to the marriage register, I just realized that I forgot to point out that Carli Rigmore was christented on 13 November 1904 at Vor Frelsers Kirke, Horsens. That needs to be added to her record. Also, it is fine to add the source from Ancestry to her record as well. But back to the parish register.)
Start here on page 76 and check each entry while working back:
I don't know about Denmark at this time, but in Norway, as long as the couple were married before a child was born, even if it was just the day before, the child was considered legitimate. Don't try to save time and jump back 9 months or more before Carli Rigmor's birth to start looking Peter Georg's and Henrikke's marriage.
Looking at this first page of marriage records, they do contain the couple's birth dates, birth places, and parents' names. Once you have those, you will know where to start looking for them in census records before they were married so likely living with their parents and possibly siblings, and then be able to track back to their birth records.
Have fun! I hope this has been helpful and not intimidating. Just follow the steps I've shown to see how this works as you do it yourself. Then try and repeat them to find more information about Peter Georg and Henriette. If you have any further questions, just ask.
(Sorry about any typos along the way, I've been typing pretty fast and only proof-reading once.)
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Something I forgot to get back to: It can be helpful to get acquainted with geography so that as you are looking for records, you can have some sense of the likelihood you are in the right place. Early on here I mentioned that I was a bit confused by Horsens and Skanderborg being mentioned together. But you might have noticed that Skanderborg popped up in some of the records I found above. So it really is time to figure out what is going on. A good place to start is the FamilySearch Research Wiki. Putting in Skanderborg as a search term leads to this will done article: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Skanderborg_County,_Denmark_Genealogy in which we learn that Skanderborg was a very large county. It was divided into six districts and each district was divided into several parishes. There is also a mention that at times Skanderborg was part of Århus county. So that explains why the Places database lists Århus among the historical parents of Horsens.
There is a very nice map in the article based on 1880 boundaries, which may have changed by 1904, where you can see both Horsens and Hansted parishes. In 1880 they were both in Voer Herred, instead of Nim Herred, in Skanderborg county.
I'll poke around some more and see if can find out when they changed herreds and when they were shifted between Århus and Skanderborg and try to demonstrate the most complete place names for this family for 1904 when Carli Rigmor was born and at the time of the 1925 census.
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It can be a long project to figure out changing jurisdictions so I may not be understanding all the details. It would be good if someone who works in Denmark saw this and fixed any errors. Based on what I could find and mainly this article: I would say the following which does not agree with the Places database:
- Before 1824: Amaliegaden (nr.), Vor Frelsers sogn, Horsens city, Nim district, Aarhus county, Denmark.
- 1824 to 1867: Amaliegaden (nr.), Vor Frelsers sogn, Horsens city, Nim district, Skanderborg county, Denmark
- 1867 to 1905: Amaliegaden (nr.), Vor Frelsers sogn, Horsens city, Nim district, Aarhus county, Denmark
- 1905 to 1942: Amaliegaden (nr.), Kloster sogn, Horsens city, Nim district, Aarhus county, Denmark
- 1942 to 1970: Amaliegaden (nr.), Kloster sogn, Horsens city, Nim district, Skanderborg county, Denmark
- 1970 to 2006: Amaliegaden (nr.) Koster sogn, Horsens city, Velje county, Denmark
It's good to have an explanation of why a name shows up in the indexes. The main necessity for knowing place names is to be able to know where to look for records.
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I Just need to add one word of caution when searching Danish Censuses on FamilySearch using a date range. Because many were indexed with just a day and a month, the system auto-standardized to birth years between 0001 and 0031 (using the day of the month as the year). Engineering is aware of this problem, but fixing auto-standardization date errors is similar to the place name errors. It's taking longer than we had hoped.
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Thank you so much for all your help! I don't have a ton of time to look through your entire post right now, but I'll definitely read the whole thing when I can and apply your advice to my research. I'm obviously a beginner when it comes to research like this, so any bit of help counts.
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