Ancestry

[mallog]

I've just taken out a monthly subscription to Ancestry and enjoying it so far. I'm frantically collecting stuff for my "shoebox" and not taking the time to process it. I'm too excited

Any good search tips gratefully received. I don't like the way the search results come up. I would say some of the most likely can be quite far down the list.

[speleobat2]

Use the advanced search feature. It will give you more options for entering information and that will help cut through the masses of results! It's located right under the Search button in the initial search window.

Keep an eye on that shoebox! It will be overflowing before you know it!

Carol

[davran]

Unfortunately, there are often mistranscriptions. Sometimes you have to think outside the box and use wildcards, ie if you are looking for HUTCHISON, you type in HUTCH*SON, which will bring up HUTCHISON, HUTCHESON, HUTCHINSON etc. Ancestry will only allow you to use a wildcard (? for one missing letter and * for a number of letters) after the first three letters, so it doesn't help with a dodgy initial letter.

You have to bear in mind the old handwriting and how capital letters can be confused, eg S is often transcribed as L. Remember that a lot of our ancestors were illiterate, so the enumerator would put what the name SOUNDED like. Henry is sometimes spelt Henery.

Those are just a few little hints!

[meelymunch]

Also make sure you save the things you look at in a different place - ie your computer as when your months subscription ends you won't be able to look at them .
Print them off , then even if they turn out to be duds it won't matter as at least you can look at them at your liesure.

I did one of the free trials a while back and foolishly didn't print off the passenger lists i had found. When i went back to it at a later date it just comes up with the screen that offers you to subscribe.
Ah well you live and learn

Carole

[mallog]

Thanks to all. I hadn't tried a wildcard. I wasn't sure if you could

I had been wondering if I would be able to see the records once my subscription is up. At the moment I'm piling them into the shoebox but I will print them off.

[JulieAK]

If you have the space, save them to your computer. You can always print them out later that way, and you'll have a hard copy on your computer if you mislay a paper copy (done that often enough). I ended up getting a external hard drive to back up to. they're getting cheaper these days.

I created 2 folders for saving images. An Ancestry images folder and the a Possibles Ancestry folder. All the interesting but unsure images went in my Possibles folder to sort out later. Have a naming system like Census1871SmithBrian&Ann or NYPassList1890SmithBrian&Ann or you'll go crazy later trying to find them.

I would also cut & paste the source citation info. Once you saved your image to your computer, if you right click on the image file, select Properties then Summary and paste that source citation into the Summary box. I don't know if that works on all computers but in my Windows XP it does. It's no more tedious than writing the source citation down. And it keeps the source citation WITH the image. Priceless! Wish I'd done that from the beginning.

I would also cut & paste the Ancestry transcription because it would include all those confusing locations like civil parish, ecc.. parish, district... etc. I never knew which one I wanted to know so I just copied the lot for future reference. I'd paste the transcription directly into my family history program into the source citation "actual text" box. I probably overdo it but I figure it's easier to delete later than to try and get the information once your subscription expires.

[mallog]

I remember there being a conversation on TS about how we store our family history information and I said I had gone from a ringbinder initially to a filing cabinet Well now I have to agree Julie I need to buy an external hard drive So often I have lost stuff on my PC that I seem to be copying it everywhere - on memory sticks and on paper Thanks for the properties hint. I'm not good at keeping source info.

[mallog]

I'm a bit miffed with Ancestry. I specifically registered with Ancestry.com and now today I'm being redirected to Ancestry .co.uk. Should I not be bothered?

[Tracey]

Mallog you should be able use either one freely if you have the World membership. My sub was taken out with .co.uk but i use .com for the U.S information.

Tracey

Is it only on my pc that Ancestry runs like tortoise - it drives me potty

ADDED I see what you mean about being re directed
ADDED SOME MORE just tried again and its fine now

[speleobat2]

Is it only on my pc that Ancestry runs like tortoise - it drives me potty :

Hi Tracey,

I have that same tortoise problem periodically. I just assumed that either ancestry was working on the system or that there was an unusually large number of people all logging on at one time. Most of the time things slow down in the afternoon for a few hours and especially on the Saturday and Sunday. Otherwise things seem to work well--as well as they can on dial-up!

Carol