12 March 2014

Has Ancestry.com's Drop Down List Heard of Boyle, New York?

Ancestry.com's places continue to frustrate.

According to the drop down list, there's no entry for Boyle in Ontario County, New York.
 Yet when I search the 1810 census at Ancestry.com for Rufus Stevens, sure enough there are entries in Boyle, New York as shown below.


There is a workaround by using a keyword:


That does require that the location be entered in with that precise spelling in the Ancestry.com database for the census year being searched. It also requires that that location be the one that was used in the specific census in question.

Ancestry.com does appear to perform the search correctly. However, if you forget what you looked for as a keyword, it won't appear as a search parameter on your results screen:


So you will have to remember what you searched for, especially if there are no results.

There are numerous places that Ancestry.com does not have in their "dropdown" list that do appear in database results. It's not just Boyle, Ontario County, New York.