5 Tips To Get You Unstuck On Ancestry.com

"You want me to go look again?"

You did it.

And it was that commercial's fault.

It teased you.

"Your story is here," it suggested.

"Find out who you are."

"Sign up. Right now."

So you did. And, sure, you found some stuff, but you still don't know who the hell you are. Or who your family is, what everyone's story is, and you've got leaves shaking at you all over the place.

You're stuck out on your great grandmother's branch staring at those shaky leaves. How many Mary Smith's can there be in this freakin' world, right? With a sister named Martha?

No worries. Here are 5 tips to get you un-stuck while working on your family history mysteries on Ancestry.com:

1. Use your noggin'. While the shaky leaves are meant to be helpful, they're just automated hints. And some are completely wrong and some are completely right. And some are in between so you need to know what you're doing before accepting those hints as if they are the truth and nothing but. Sure, look at them, but don't take them as gospel. Evaluate those automated hints. If the shaky leaf suggests your great grandmother is George Smith who was 78 years old when she had her first child, something is amiss. Tell that leaf, "You don't own me. And you obviously don't know what you're talking about. Duh." So? Look at the automated hint given and evaluate it before adding it to your tree.  And then move on to the next clue.
   
2. Get away from your tree to search. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and it also makes for a healthier family tree. Sure, go through those automated-hints-shaky-leaves. And then do some searches using the search function in your family tree. But then totally get out of your family tree and go to the Search tab. Enter some information manually -- like first name, surname, and place of death. See what comes up. Look at it. Evaluate it. Do another search with slightly different information. See what comes up. Look at that. Evaluate that. Rinse and repeat. {Do the hokey pokey. Shake it all about even.} Sometimes the information you've entered into your tree is wrong and it affects your search results. Or? There's too much information and it's confusing all those Ancestry.com elves inside trying to figure out what you're looking for. So? Do some searching outside of your Ancestry.com tree. {I'm just kidding about the elves. It's really algorithms trying to read your mind, but I'm allergic to math and elves seem friendlier, no?}
3. Step back! Get away from that main search box on the Search Page. Give those elves a rest and tell them where what you're looking for just might be. Once you've narrowed your search down to a location, look in that location's records on Ancestry.com. Here, let me rock your world. Go to the Search Page, and scroll down. See that U.S. map? It's totally clickable. Click on the state you think your great grandmother was born in, perhaps lived in, or died in. Or did just about anything {that would have caused a document to be created or warrant a shout out in the newspaper or something}. Remember, when it comes to finding stuff about your family {and their many secrets}, it's usually organized by location. So? Stop sticking stuff in that main search page, hitting that enter button, and hoping for the best for the 1000th time. Stop the insanity and start searching for records based on location. {Location, location, location.}
4. Guess what? Not everything you need to solve your family history mysteries is on Ancestry.com. In fact -- are you sitting down? Not everything you need to prove your Great Aunt Bernice ran away with that carny is even online. Shocking, I know. But there it is. So the next step after exhausting Ancestry.com elves and leaves is to look elsewhere online. And my number one place to go after Ancestry.com is FamilySearch.org which is another online database that has record indexes and record images. And the best part? Totally free. And? After registering for free, you can even see digitized records {like death certificates} and print them out {or save them to your hard drive or whatever}. And, over there, follow these steps again. Over and over. 'Cause it's funny that on their search page you have to scroll down for the map too. However, it's not clickable. You choose a country and then state from the menu on the left to start your location-based searching. So? Get off Ancestry.com and search elsewhere for elves to help you out. Oops. I mean search elsewhere for stuff to help you document your family history.
5. So then you're probably thinking, "Where do I go after I exhaust those elves, I mean, those two places?" Don't worry. I've got you covered on my Research Resources Page where you'll find links to both free and subscription-based sites that have a range of indexes, records, and resources to help you solve your family history mysteries. {So? More elves to exhaust.}

~Caroline

---

If you found this article helpful, please share: