12 December 2011

What Ancestry.com Can Give Genealogists for Christmas--THE OLD SEARCH

I've decided what Ancestry.com can give genealogists for Christmas--keeping the "old search."

Readers of my Genealogy Search Tip of the Day blog know that "new" search on Ancestry.com does not search based upon location correctly for advanced searches. Ancestry.com admitted it does not work and several users confirmed my results--despite emails insisting that it did work.

I gave up and went back to the old search. The old search works. It does what it is supposed to. This is the screen for my search for people with the last name of Green living in Linn County, Missouri, using the old search.


Guess what I got? Results from Pennsylvania? Kentucky? NO!

I got results from Linn County, Missouri, and ONLY Linn County, Missouri. Only 45 results!


This was what I needed from my search and results that the "new" search (I won't use the word "improved" as a modifier because it's not appropriate). Getting the results I requested is necessary for my analysis. Interestingly enough, one of the names is "Aloony," which I hope is not someone's attempt to make a comment about me (grin!).

I was a little happy about getting the results I searched for.

If you like the "old" search--let Ancestry.com know loud and clear! Heck you can even email them a link to this post if you want. The address for this post is:http://rootdig.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-ancestrycom-can-give-genealogists.html

Genealogy Search Tip of the Day has a post on how to get to the old search. Feel free to share it with others.

Thanks to Linda M who reminded me that the old search works just fine. And my apologies to my high school English teacher for all the exclamation marks (she told me once that excessive use of them was immature--which I think it is). I rarely use them at all, but will in this post to accentuate the fact that I'm pleased the old search does what it is SUPPOSED to do.