Genealogy Research Hints

Tomorrow, I have session 3 of 6 sessions of research instruction in Agawam, MA. One of the first hints I like to share in any of these classes is this: When you begin a search in any genealogy search engine be it Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Mocavo.com put in as little information as possible. That usually gives me FAR more results than I need. The point is, I get results! Try "John Smith". That's it, just "John Smith." You should get 4,730,931 returns at Ancestry.com... and you need just one of them!

Now I can start whittling those results with dates, locations, family members or other identification but only ONE term at a time. With regard to dates, I always start out with +/- 10 years... It sometimes takes quite a while to maneuver your way around the huge number of returns you may end up with, but it's a whole lot better than stuffing every bit of data you know (which, in the end may prove to be wrong) and coming up with nothing.

Ancestry has a neat trick. When you put in a location, for example, there's a drop down menu beneath the box where you can select from an interesting list of options. "County/Adjacent County" is VERY useful when the county you think your ancestor lived in doesn't yield any results. They may never have moved! Instead, the county lines may have moved. Over the years, hundreds of towns and counties have been formed from a "parent" town or county. Give it a shot....you'll find it very convenient more than you think!