Tag Archives: Tools & Tech: Ancestry

Ancestry has a new collection, just in time for the 4th of July.  You can now search the Sons of the American Revolution applications, which are indexed by all of the names found in the lineage of the application.

In Search Strategies:  Ancestry – Part 2 I discussed the use of Soundex and wildcard searches.  In Part 3, we’ll look at targeting search results.

In Search Strategies:  Ancestry – Part 1 I showed you how to set up the search screen that I personally use, which gives you more control and usually better results.  Part 2 will discuss various tips for conducting actual searches with this setup using Soundex or wildcard searches. Soundex Before I get into a discussion about wildcards, I want to talk about Soundex and it’s limitations.  Many of you already know what Soundex is and how it works.  If you are not familiar with this or want to know more, […]

Ancestry is probably one of your top go-to databases when conducting general research.  For me personally, I like to start by building a family using census records and then move onto vital records.  Once I have a pretty good feel for the family structure (including places and time periods), I start to explore a myriad of other sources depending on the place, time period, and the family’s circumstances (i.e., did they own land or rent?).

Prompt:  Write about your favorite genealogy web sites. It seems like a new web site pops up every day. Tell us about the ones you like best.

Prompt:  Talk about the different types of technology you use in your genealogy research. Whether it’s a new search engine, a special application, or anything else “2.0,” let readers know what you’re working with, and how it’s working for you.

On Tuesday, I posted Bingo! (and a few lessons learned).  The long and the short is that I finally found my grandfather in the 1930 census.  He was indexed as Jack Isbill, when in actuality it should have been Jack Cahill. I submitted corrections to his record and the others in the family.  Today, I got emails from Ancestry saying that they had added the correction and it was now available in the searches.

The Bingo For a while now, I have been trying to find my grandfather in the 1930 census.  It’s a weird situation, that goes a little something like this: My grandfather, John F “Jack” CAHILL was born in 1922.  He had an older brother Raymond, born in 1918, and an older sister, Marcella, born around 1920.  Raymond was enumerated in the 1920 census with his parents, John F CAHILL and Catherine M SCHWARTZ Cahill.  Since Marcella was not listed, I assume that she was born after January 1920 (which is […]