General Chat

Hello members.

Besides Genes Reunited, can someone please recommend a good ancestry search site?

I joined Ancestry.com as a paid customer today, but I'm finding it totally useless.

They seem to be obsessed with giving me US records of names I supply, even though I clearly and repeatedly include the search term 'UK'.

A search for my own mother in the UK, with the full details that I know about her - returns me a 'zero' find by them.

I've got to admit I'm pretty much exhausted with scrolling through endless pages of 'Exact' and "Close' matches which once in a blue moon comes up with a name that might have some relevance to my search terms.

I've reach the end of any positive returns here at Genes Reunited, and Ancestry.com seems to be mostly about public records in the US.

I owe a huge debt to a few of the members here without whose kind assistance my family tree chart would be looking very bare indeed.

So before I depart I'd just like to say a big Thank You to Quoy, Rutland Belle, Christine2, Christina, rootgatherer, SylviaInCanada, Lynee, and LadyKira.

Best Regards,
Allan Munro-Smith
Sydney Australia

A few suggestions:-

First of all it seems from what you are saying that you are trying to do a general search across all Ancestry Records in the hope that something might turn up. This is not necessarily the best way to go about things. Far better is to search a specific data base where you stand a good chance of finding something relevant.

For example, for England and Wales you should be looking first of all at the Births Marriages and Deaths (BMD) records, and then as you get further back with your research, the Census records.

To save time, I have urls saved in my Favourite Bookmarks which take me directly to the relevant search pages.

BMD's
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/rectype/vital/freebmd/bmd.aspx

Census
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/group/ukicen/UK_Census_Collection.aspx

Family Trees
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/rectype/default.aspx?rt=42

As you get more used to the site you can explore other databases which might be relevant to your research

Secondly, don't try to put in too much search criteria. Genealogy site searches are not the same as they generally require ALL the info you enter to match, which means that if just one bit is out, then you get nothing back. Put in as little as possible to start with then narrow down later if you get too many results.

Good luck

Ancestry is fantastic once you get the hang of the searching

If you make sure you choose UK & Ireland in collection priority box at bottom of search you should find it easier to sift through results

Thank you. I'm printing your suggestions.

My family tree ranges from China to Russia, Germany, France, England, Scotland and Canada in just the last two centuries.

I've had members here give me names from certain archives and public records that Ancestry.com could not reproduce for me.

Thanks again.
Allan

To help you get the most out of Ancestry, see if you have access to the Card Catalogue which lists all of the data bases on the site.

From your list in the post above, they have

1841-1901 uk census and some transcribed Scottish ones.
Various UK bapitisms and marriages (parish records)
GRO cross reference indexes up to 2005
Incoming alien and passenger list to the uk
Incoming passenger list and immigration records to Canada and the US
Some Canadian parish record BMD, mainly in Ontario
Canadian census

From the Europe filter, they list
Albania18
Armenia9
Austria61
Azerbaijan9
Belarus29
Belgium70
Bulgaria19
Croatia16
Czech Republic53
Denmark47
Estonia11
Finland20
France675
Germany1000+
Greece21
Hungary39
Ireland149
Italy116
Latvia23
Lithuania41
Luxembourg10
Moldova16
Netherlands125
Norway29
Poland208
Portugal21
Romania39
Slovakia20
Spain46
Sweden49
Switzerland88
Turkey10
Ukraine26
United Kingdom945
Yugoslavia22

There doesn't seem to be anything for China, and the 'Russia' label seems to be linked to Holocaust records

For another site, you could take a 14 day trial for findmypast, but there is a tendency to be UK orientated records.

NB - try logging into Ancestry.co.uk. That ought to give you UK priority records. It will probably try to navigate you to the .com site, but it's worth a try.

Thank you Detective. I'll print out your post and follow your suggestions.

Thank you for the effort you've made to help me.

Best Wishes,

Allan Munro-Smith
Australia

Allan

most of the records I found were on Ancestry.

a few on find my past.

many of your records are say from japan to canada
russia to japan so you do not want uk priority.

some of you family were using anglicised transliterated names so that made it a little harder.

i have only been using ancestry a little while so am still finding my way around.

varying search terms helps

also using advanced search.

but those records are there.

sometimes you have to sit and plough.

there is a help and advice tab across the top and i think a tutoriial

the other thing is when i typed in henry peacock russia i came up with some good hits but if you look don the sid of the page you can narrow down the categories to say immigration or other trees.

still on same search parameter i just changed it to henry k peacock and got this

British Army WWI Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920
about H K Peacock Name: H K Peacock
[Henry Kartchkal Peacock]
Regiment or Corps:

this could be him too

British Phone Books, 1880-1984
about Henry K Peacock Name: Henry K Peacock
Address: 3 Browning Rd
Exchange: Hflrppml^n
Directory title: London Surnames L - R
Publication Year: 1947
Directory County: London
Page Number: 2043

i also just used
peacock
birth russia.
there were quite a few hits with links to china and japan

Wow! You're good at this research stuff, LadyKira.

Today I had some success at Ancestry. Oddly enough, I found that the least search terms you use - the better the results.

From a book written in 1923 about the Revillon fur trade - I knew Henry had volunteered to fight in WWI.

It's great that you've found this more detailed reference to him.

Thanks again.
Allan
Sydney Australia

Yes, that was what I was saying earlier - don't put in too much search criteria. It doesn't work quite like Google which looks for things which match some, but not necessarily all of the criteria you enter.

In fact what happens is that everything you enter must match, not just some of it. If even just one detail is incorrect you get nothing back.

It is also a good idea to familiarise yourself with the use of wildcards. * meaning 0 or more letters and ? meaning 1 letter.

So for example, searching for the name Bag*o* will return variations such as

Bagot
Bagott
Baggot
Bagod

etc


It gets better with practice.....!

Good stuff, IGP!

This all goes into my Help file for future reference.

I'm hoping to qualify for a "LadyKira Gold Star of Excellence Award" before I'm through with this Family Trees caper! :)

Allan
Australia

Allan this family tree caper is never ending just ask my husband. He is forever asking when is it going to end. It's a bit like those adverts that state "wait there's more"

Persie

That ScotlandsPeople site is just unbelievable.

After dickering around for two days to get them to accept my registration details - now they're telling me my Visa details are 'unauthenticated'.

I've checked with the bank - plenty of cash in my Visa account.

ScotlandsPeople must be losing a lot of money from customers like me having to give up on them.

Sad.

Other than checking that the details you gave are correct, could it be the wretched 'Visa Verification' thing? You are not alone if you have trouble with that, on any site.

No, detective - they just haven't got their act together yet. I make plenty of other online purchases with my Visa card without any problems.

Persie - I know how your husband feels. :)

I had a 'Eureka!' moment yesterday when I found the link to me from 4 separate family branches in my family tree.

For days I've been plodding along trying to find the one name that would connect these people to my grandmother as a direct line to me.

I found it.

Just one name, and it all came together. When I shouted "BINGO!" my cat 'Fluffy' jumped up from the lounge-room carpet and was ready to shoot out the back door. (My neighbour's dog is called Bingo).

Regards,
Allan
Sydney Australia