STEP BY STEP
Search Ancestry’s record holdings – including the LMA collection – by location
6 Card Catalogue
For a wider view, use the Card Catalogue. You’ll find this at the bottom of the Search menu at the top of the screen. This lets you see all the record collections across our whole site, and filter them by category, location and date.
7 New releases
We’re constantly adding record collections, so there are always new opportunities to find your family. Stay up to date with our latest releases at www. ancestry.co.uk/whatsnew.
USING THE SEARCH PAGES 8 Exact matches
The ‘Match all terms exactly’ option can be useful in narrowing down your results when searching. However, be careful as this will exclude any records that don’t include all the information in your search – for example, many records don’t have a death date.
9 Alternative names
Names were often spelt differently in the past, so use the options under the ‘First Name’ and ‘Last Name’ boxes to include any alternatives. Search for other possibilities yourself (for example Owen and Owens), too, as this can be more effective.
10 Wildcard searches
You can also look for different spellings using wildcard characters. Use an * if there are several letters you’re not sure of (‘Rob*son will look for Robinson and Robertson) or a ? for a single letter (Sm?th for Smith and Smyth). For more information on wildcards, read ‘Searching with Spelling Variations’ in our Help Centre: support.ancestry.co.uk.
11 Nearby counties
You’ll often find that your ancestors moved across county borders. When searching, you can use the ‘Exact to the Place’ options under any Location box to focus on the county you entered, plus any bordering ones.
12 Family members
There are many James Olivers in our records, but far fewer who were married to ladies named Charlotte, and fewer still with
Use keyboard shortcuts to navigate your results quicker
sons named Frank. Use the ‘Family Member’ options to include other relatives in your search. 13 Lateral thinking Can’t find James Oliver? Another option is to simply search for a different person in the same household. Try searching for wife Charlotte or other family members with more unusual names, and see if you can spot James elsewhere on the record. 14 Collection Priority The ‘Collection Priority’ option lets you focus on different parts of the world. Perhaps your great uncle ran away to America? Switch the collection priority to the US to view mainly American records, and tick ‘Show only records from these collections’ if you don’t want to see anything else. 15 Browsing records When you’re searching within individual record collections, you’ll often see options to ‘Browse this collection’ on the right. These let you choose a particular place and time period, and read through the records as though you were reading a book – they’re particularly useful with parish records. MANAGING YOUR RESULTS 16 Result views There are two ways of viewing your results. You can switch between them using the ‘Records’ and ‘Categories’ options at the top-right. ‘Records’ presents each individual record with the closest matches at your the resultstop; ‘Categories’by collection. groupsYou can results sort count. these by name and by 17 Edit your search If you’ve made a mistake, or you want to try a slightly different search, you don’t need to go back to the search page. Just click ‘Edit Search’ in the pane on the left, change what you want, and then click ‘Search’. 18 Narrow by category Perhaps you’re only interested in census records or travel records? You can easily filter your results by selecting one of the options under ‘All Categories’. You’ll then see more filter options, such as date ranges or sub- categories. 19 Record preview If you keep clicking on all your results, it can take a long time to check which ones relate to your family. Instead, just hover over a result to see a quick preview of the most important information. 20 Shortcut keys You can use keyboard shortcuts to navigate your results quicker. For example, pressing ‘r’ will let you edit your search, while ‘p’ brings up a preview of the record you’ve selected. There’s a full list of your Shortcut Keys to the bottom-left of the results page.