I just found out that Ancestry.com has improved their search engine.
In the past, if I searched for someone with a birth date in the early 1800s I could expect to see results from the 1930 census or other 1900-era records. Sometimes this resulted in lots of untimely results that we scanned through to make sure we didn't miss an important fact.
Now Ancestry.com has upgraded the search engine to limit the results to the timeframe you specify. That should eliminate a lot of results that we previously had to scan through.
The search results are now limited to:
- The years you specify for birth and death dates – with a "fudge factor" of 5 years before and 2 years after;
- If you only specify a birth year the search will be limited to 100 years after that date; and
- If you specify a death year the search will be for 100 years before that date.
As an example if you put in a birth year of 1840 and a death year of 1901 the search will return records between the years 1835 and 1903. If you simply put in a death year of 1920, and no birth year, the search will return records from 1815 and 1922.
My first results trying the search was very encouraging. In the past I would get people well outside of the year ranges that I specified…sometimes hundreds of extraneous results. Now the list is quite manageable.
Try it and tell us what worked and even what didn’t. If you are already a member of All-About-Family-Trees.com, simply click on the "Add new comment" button and add your comments. If you are not a member yet, take a few minutes and join our growing community and tell us what databases you have used. Simply click on the link at the top right of the page, create a username and be sure to signup for our weekly newsletter. If you signup for the newsletter I'll send you a free copy of my e-book '10 "Must Know" Tips to Uncover Your Heritage'.
We all look forward to hearing from you soon.
