Genealogy Chat

Here's a tip for searching websites of 18th century documents or older. If you're keying in an ancestor's name that contains the letter 's', try substituting the letter 'f'. I thought I had found all I could on my Wilmshurst ancestors but then I keyed in 'Wilmfhurft' and found a whole load if documents I would otherwise have missed.

In addition to this it will often not be the last S which is an F if ending in a double S.

ie Lass will be shown as Lafs Class = Clafs

Just to make life easier for us

:-D :-D

And the letter l, too, sometimes :)
ie Ladd / Sadd.

You can sometimes see the fs for a double s in the middle of a word as well

Rufsel for Russel. It probably depends on a) the transcriber and b) the education of the original scribe

In addition to 18th century documents also on the 18th century newspaper when looking for a marriage for example enter" Mifs Jones" as a keyword.-j

an easier way is to use the wild card on sites that will allow it


? = 1 letter

* = 2 or more letters


I prefer to use this method whenever possible.