Genealogy Chat

Just arrived in after a drink at lunchtime....thought I'd click on Karen's thread to see the tips .............the mind boggles now.....

Is this what they call an exact search??? I typed in George Adams and ticked Exact search for 1991 census. (As Merry Suggests, no other information) after 50 results we are still only up to GEO N Adams, really helpful, not!! Sorry Merry, but how do you find what you are looking for this way?? Kat :( Abraham George Adams abt 1886 Manchester; Cheetham, Lancashire, England Grandson Astley Lancashire View Record Agnes Geo C Adams Henry J, Harriet M abt 1885 Wandsworth, London, England Daughter Wandsworth London View Record Albert Geo Adams Thomas, Charlotte abt 1876 Heavitree, Devon, England Son Heavitree Devon View Record Albert George Adams abt 1865 Saffron Walden, Essex, England Lodger Woodditton Cambridgeshire View Record Albert George Adams Margaret abt 1843 Hastings, Sussex, England Head Mile End Old Town London View Record Albert George Adams James, Prudence Caroline abt 1883 Birmingham Son Birmingham Warwickshire View Record Alford George Adams Lene Phoebe abt 1855 Paddington, London, England Head Kensington London View Record Alfred Geo Adams Alfred, Kate abt 1887 Wimbledon, Surrey, England Son Wimbledon Surrey View Record Archibald George Adams

merry, YES!!!!! this is what i was on about, there used to be abox on ranked search where you could put, lived, instead of born. I only use ranked search aswell, (cant get on with exact). Jim, yes you are quite right, did suss this out for myself, but seems VERY longwinded way of searching, why couldnt they just have the old box as well, within the search area??? ie, i know joe bloggs was born 1879, dont know where, but i know he lived in bulwell, notts, in 1882, ' used to be able to search like that, but not anymore, cheers ancestry!! oh well, i suppose in 2 months down line we'll all have adjusted and be finding different/ better? ways of searching, and 'getting there' eventually. gonna get off me soapbox, and take a seat, thank you for taking time out to add/reply Julie

Below the search box on 'home page' MORE COLLECTIONS UK & Ireland Parish and Probate Records England & Wales, BMD Index Pallot Marriage Index Irish Immigrants: New York Port Arrival UK Census Collection<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< This will give the advanced search.

Gill!!!! ''By jove, I think she's got it!!'' (me, I mean!) On the old Ranked Search, am I right in thinking you could choose a place (town) of residence somewhere on the front search page and now it's gone, but was never there for Exact Searches???? When I'm doing a look up I only ever put their name on the first screen.....I have never put anything else and have never used Ranked Search, so have never seen the ranked search entry screen! Am posting a separate thread about my hols! (lol) Merry

Julie, could it be that we are both doing it wrong! Quite possibly, but I still can't see where Merry is getting the Parish box or town box unless doing a single census search - Anyway, have worked out how to do it even if we are still moaning - and Merry you have a good holiday, how will we all manage without you???? - where are you off to?? Internet cafe nearby??? I couldn't go without knowing I could check emails, not just for this but everything else - how bad have we all become?? All reliant on our little boxes!! LOL Anyway hope you have good holiday Merry+family and anyone else who is off this weekend... I;ll be saving My Ancestry to my own PC files, like Merry should have done this to start with, I'm learning to think things out in advance now - Gill :)) Gill

Julie, could it be that we are both doing it wrong! Quite possibly, but I still can't see where Merry is getting the Parish box or town box unless doing a single census search - Anyway, have worked out how to do it even if we are still moaning - and Merry you have a good holiday, how will we all manage without you???? - where are you off to?? Internet cafe nearby??? I couldn't go without knowing I could check emails, not just for this but everything else - how bad have we all become?? All reliant on our little boxes!! LOL Anyway hope you have good holiday Merry+family and anyone else who is off this weekend... I;ll be saving My Ancestry to my own PC files, like Merry should have done this to start with, I'm learning to think things out in advance now - Gill :)) Gill

To find a specific place on any census, I use one of three ways: 1) type the parish name in the Civil Parish box 2) Type the town in the Town box 3) Type the Registration district name (or either 1) or 2)) in the Keywords box. I don't really want to use Ranked Search because I can never get any results with it!! (I don't mean none.....just not the right people!) Anyway.......am off on hols tomorrow, so you won't hear any more of my bleating! Merry

at last!!! gill, you know what i mean!! LOL I too have found that the only way to search where lived is to use an actual cen yr, and search that way, is a pain in bum ho hum, i suppose we can moan about it till the ice melts, dont suppose it'll change matters Julie

Yep with Julie on this one - we all do in different ways but I'd always used a rank search, very handy for mispellings etc, but you could add in name of town if you knew (or atleast I think we could) and that would bring up all info. census BMD etc Ok for just putting in a name, but if you are looking for someone say in a particular town, now you can only do it when searching any one year, which means you hve to do more than one if you want to check more than 1 year, have to say I do also like the listing of names with ages, it is a great help, but just wish they'd only added that! Shame we aren't all as organised as Merry tho. cos I think there are lots of peops. who had loads saved in the My Ancestry - so we now all have plans to save this lot over to our PC harddrives - but as the sun's gone in (well it has in Essex) best we get onto it rather quickly ..... Gill

hiya thanks snowdrops, that seems to make more sense, it would seem although alot of people do have ancestry, they all search in different ways, which is why there is so much confusion. I used to just goto search tab, and go from there, but only on ranked searches, I do like some of the features, but others are just PANTS thanks very much snowdrops Julie

Ah Julie Just seen your response to Merry and now know what you mean. This wasn't on ALL the census boxes before though was it. It was only on certain ones/one before surely (again, it wasn't a feature I used as, until I found who I was looking for, I didn't know where they lived, IYSWIM) Snowdrops

Dark Secretz I don't search from the home page. I scroll down below the search box on the hompage and select the year I want to search from the list - the box which then comes up is so similar to the one used previously - it asks for Residence and is broken down to three boxes as before: County, Civil Parish and Town. Snowdrops

hiya merry before we had a also lived in box, not parish but place, where you could specify a county, that has gone, might i suggest you try using ranked search, then you might have some idea of the problems we are having sorry to be a pain LOL Julie

Julie....do you mean a parish of residence or an address? Merry (going out now)

Karen... You said ''That explains why I couldnt see it - you didnt have to click on all matches before - just another annoying little 'upgrade'.'' but as far as I know you have had to click on all matches, if there are results for a person on all censuses, for ages and ages as there are only five lines of info available on the first results page. Even since Ancestry had more than five Censuses available (they have 29 at the moment) you would have had to click again to see all the results. Merry

snowdrops, please tell me WHERE you have to go to search residence, all i get on home page is name dob place of birth, using a ranked search that is, there isnt anywhere that you CAN specify a residence Heeelpppppp Julie

Am trying to follow what you are all saying! Sorry, Mary, if I didn't see your previous response :o(( My box for Exact Matches Only is ticked and exact matches is what I get. Asked for William Fisher, Yorkshire (not the Riding selections), 1832. For the 1851 census I got two matches. When I viewed them, the second one was Karen's relative. Then I tried asking for William Fisher, but not filling in any of the other boxes on the main page, and got the exact same results as Mary. (this is the way I usually do it, rather than filling in any years/counties etc on the first screen) Julie, I use the UK version too....but never ever use the Ranked Search, so can't really comment! Gill....I am not sure why you can't search all years at once? That's what I do al the time. Maybe it's because you use the ranked search and I use exact?I have never used the shoebox facility as I save everything to my hard drive and attach to my home tree program, so don't miss what I haven't used!! Thanks for your comments .....I can only think the main problems are for those who prefer the Ranked Search? Merry

That explains why I couldnt see it - you didnt have to click on all matches before - just another annoying little 'upgrade'. I do like the new census function though - where parents / spouses are listed on the results page. I do have to say though that I would prefer it if they still have 'view household' option there aswell as the summary at the bottom of the record - I have printed a few out this morning to check later, and its annoying how you only get their names / ages on the printout. They have made part of it better / easier by making something else worse. I have now had to go into everyone individually and write their details on the printout.

I'm sorry, I've said ti before and I'll say it again, I'm with Merry on this one and don't understand what the problem is. Yes, there have been one or two changes, but finding people is just as easy as it ever was (made easier by the listing of spouses/father's name etc). I can search using place of residence rather than place of birth. So have Merry and I got the old version and are we to feel left out? Please tell us - lol Snowdrops