06 May 2013

Will Ancestry.com's New Search Be "All That?"

[warning: opinion ahead]

Ancestry.com's website is trying to get me excited about their new search results. 

If they fix the problem I've been writing about for some time now, I'll get excited. 

Otherwise I doubt there will much to write about or get excited about.

This search (screen shot below) of all of Ancestry.com's "Immigration and Travel" databases constantly brings up "too many matches." I fail to see how there can be too many immigrants arriving between 1868 and 1872 whose first name begins with Sop* and whose last name begins with Tra*



I've been told by Ancestry.com that I need to search databases separately.

What is the point of a global search if I have to search each database one by one?

I also got a mild lecture from Ancestry.com on how Boolean searches work in one of my emails about this topic. I don't need lectures on Boolean logic---I want the search to work.

I endured Dr. Welch's lectures on Boolean logic while an undergrad at Western Illinois University in Macomb. Actually they were fine lectures and I also worked my way through a year of abstract algebra and a semester of real analysis in graduate school--lectures on how to construct Boolean searches are not what I need. I need searches that work.