Ancestry.com Class 1 I. Ancestry Search Techniques Take a few minutes to explore Ancestry’s home search page. First, use the drop down menu and select Search all Records. Explore by Location Scroll down to Explore by Location and click on a state to see the place pages. Note the kinds of records available. You can also explore the records available for UK & Ireland, Europe, Canada and Australia & NZ. Card Catalog On the right hand side note Special Collections in the card catalog. The Card Catalog can be accessed from here or from the drop down search menu at the top. Search On the Search form, toggle between the basic and advanced search. Note the additional fields in the advanced search. 2 A basic search comes up without filters. The really good stuff is in the advanced form. If you are doing a search for a common name you can get millions of results. So how do you keep that under control? Go to the search all records on Ancestry.com. In the advanced search enter the name John Smith. Search How many results did you get? __________ Go back to the main search page. You need 4 basis pieces of information: 1. first name 2. last name 3. A location (birth, lived in, etc.) 4. birthdate (use a spread of a couple of years if you check exact year) You can edit the search in the upper left hand corner. Let’s say John Smith was born in 1890 and lived in Virginia. Add that information. Search How many results do you get? __________ 3 You don’t have to go back to the search form every time. Look in the upper left hand corner to locate edit search. Let’s say the first problem were trying to solve is location. Go down to the bottom of the search form to collection priority and choose United States. Search How many results do you get? __________ Edit search again and choose show only records from this location. Notice that you can also restrict the search to Historical Records, Family Trees, etc. Choose just Historical Records. Search How many results do you get? __________ Let’s make the search results even smaller. Go back to edit search. In the location we want to only see records of a residence in Virginia. Under location click on use default settings. Restrict to this place exactly. Search How many results do you get? __________ Go back to edit search. Let’s say John Smith lived in Goochland County, Virginia. Click on default settings, then select county/ adjacent counties. Search How many results do you get? __________ Go back to edit search and restrict the results to this place exactly. Search How many results do you get? __________ II. The Catalog 4 The Ancestry card catalog is the location of all the Ancestry.com data bases. Use the drop down menu to find card catalog. If you know the name of the specific data base you are looking for you can type its name in the Title box on the left or if you just know a keyword or two you can type it in the Keyword(s) box. You can also use the filters. Let’s suppose you are looking for a record of someone who died in Kentucky in 1922. First under filter by collect select Birth, Marriage & Death, then select Death, Burial, Cemetery & Obituaries. The next option is Filter by Location. Select North America, then USA and finally, Kentucky. You can also filter it by county. You can also filter by dates so click 1920’s. On the right you will then see all the data bases that might be relevant for deaths in Kentucky in the 1920’s. If you see one that has potential you can click on it and do a search exclusively within that data base. III. Immigration and Travel 5 What is the difference between immigration and emigration? Both words have the same root word, migrate, as well as similar pronunciations and meanings. Migration means moving from place to place. When it refers to a seasonal movement repeated yearly, we may think of Monarch butterflies, Canadian geese, nomadic peoples and migrant workers. The permanent move of a person’s place of residence, from one country to another, is referred to using the terms immigration and emigration. Emigration is the act of leaving one’s country to settle in another. It views the action from the perspective of the person. Immigration views that same action from the perspective of the person’s new country. The prefix ex means out. Emigration is from the point of view of coming out. If you identify the letter i in immigration with the word in, you will remember immigration is from the point of view of coming in. The pronunciation is almost identical. Immigration is pronounced /IHM muh GRAYshuhn/, while emigration is pronounced /EHM muh GRAY shuhn/. Immigration and naturalization records tell the story of your ancestor making the decision to immigrate, travel, or become a citizen of a different country. Like many types of records, earlier immigration records typically don't contain as much detail as their more contemporary counterparts, but they still contain pieces of your ancestor's story. Examine them in the context of the time in which your ancestor lived and learn about traveling conditions to fill in more of the story. Twentieth century immigration records can be very rich in detail, including the names and addresses of other family members, in both the old country and new. Look at every detail in the documents and you'll see the story unfold. As it does, you'll probably find new clues to further your research. Some of the details you may find in immigration records include place of birth or last residence in their country of origin, names of other relatives, immigration details, occupation, and in some cases, photographs. Ancestry Immigration and Travel Search Page From the drop down menu select Immigration and Travel. 6 Select Passenger Lists to narrow your search to only passenger lists from all of the ports currently To search the entire available. Immigration & Travel category of records, enter your search terms here. Use default settings Learn about the ship your ancestor traveled on. Restrict to exact matches and: Phonetic matches Names with similar meanings or spellings Records where only initials are recorded Articles listed here can help you get the most from these records. Select United States in the Collection Priority box to give U.S. collections higher ranking in results. Click the box below it to limit results to only U.S. collections. IV. Ancestry Pictures 7 Use the drop down menu to find card catalog. On the left under Filter by Collection, click on Pictures. There all 35 data bases in this collection. To search the entire collection, click on Search the entire “Pictures” Category. You can also use the filters on the left to narrow by Location, Dates or Languages. Millions of photographs have been added to Ancestry family trees by users who have indicated that their tree can be viewed by Ancestry members. In the "Public Member Photos and Scanned Documents" section at Ancestry, you can find photographs of individuals, families, homes, cemetery tombstones, and more. In addition, millions of contributors have shared documents such as naturalization papers, marriage certificates, drawings, maps and other documents that may not be found elsewhere. Other collections in this category include school yearbooks, images of passenger ships, selected U.S. headstones, African American Photos, U.S. Civil War Photos, images of Professional Baseball Players, historical post cards from several countries and the Library of Congress Photo Collection, 1840-2000.