John Szucs, born in 1906 in the U.S.A. in Ohio

All of these records pertain to my grandfather. There are two census records for him living in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio; his death record; and a passenger arrival record showing him and my grandmother returning from an anniversary trip to Europe.

Now just for the heck of it, let's add his county of birth--Jefferson County. Since I know that's where he's born, that can only help, right? Wrong. Adding Jefferson County eliminates all of the hits except his death record. Why? Because none of the other records index the birth county. The census will show the county he lived in for those years, but they only give the state in which he was born.

Making Exact Search More Flexible
There are several ways we can make the Exact Search more flexible. First, you could de-select the "Exact" box only on certain fields, but this will take you back into the world of Ranked Search, where you'll see the results ranked by best match again, rather than the list of hits by database that you see when you do an Exact Search.

There is also a Soundex option available from the homepage that is only available when you have the "Exact Matches Only" box checked. (When you're doing a Ranked Search, it will automatically include Soundex options, as well as some other name variations.) Soundex is also available on many of the individual database search pages as well.

Let's do another "play-along" example, using the same gentleman I used in last week's article--my great-grandfather, Raymond Dyer. On the homepage, enter,

Raymond Dyer,
Soundex (from the drop-down box that follows the name),
lived in U.S.A. and New York.

Last week with one Ranked Search we were able to locate Raymond in four of the six enumerations that he was alive for and that are currently available--1880, 1910, 1920, and 1930. With this one other search using Soundex, we pick him up in the remaining censuses--1870 and 1900. In 1870, his last name was indexed as Dyre, and in 1900 it is listed as Dyar.

Soundex Tip: Check the Soundex codes for common variations you've found for the surname you are researching so you know that your Soundex Searches are covering all the bases. For example, my great- grandfather's last name appears on Mekalski on some records, and as Menkalski. I believe that the name was spelled with a diacritic over the e, which according to "First Names of the Polish Commonwealth" by William Hoffman and George W. Helon, the nasal "e" with the diacritic sounds like "en." Checking the codes for these two variations, I find that Mekalski is coded M242 and Menkalski is M524. Because of the different codes, a Soundex Search for Mekalski wouldn't turn up variations of Menkalski, so I'd have to do two searches to capture both. It's a good idea to keep a list of name variations and the corresponding codes handy, so that you don't miss any during your searches. You can get Soundex Codes for names by using the RootsWeb Soundex Converter.

Wildcard Searches
Another way to loosen up Exact Searches is with wildcards. Ancestry currently allows for the use of either an asterisk (*) or question mark (?) in searches, although at present, neither can be used within the first three letters of the name. (Searches of that magnitude would eat up bandwidth slowing down or blocking searches for other users significantly.) The asterisk replaces anywhere between zero to six characters, and the question mark replaces one character. Since the asterisk would clearly cover instances where one character was misinterpreted, that's the most commonly used wildcard, but if you were getting too many hits returned with a search, you might try the question mark to narrow that down a bit.

As an example, let's use Mary Tob*n, born 1772 and since Mary liked to lie about her age, let's give her a wide berth and also add some flexibility to the date field by selecting "+/ – 10" years. This finds my fourth great-grandmother in the 1850 and 1870 censuses, and her passenger arrival record as well. The variant spellings it picked up included the original spelling of Tobin, as well as Toban, Toben, and Tobbin.

In my example, by simply de-selecting Family Trees from the box at the bottom, I was looking at the first four results being the census records of Raymond Dyer for 1880, 1910, 1920, and 1930. Not bad for only filling out one search form.

Next Week
Next week, we'll continue our look at searching options at Ancestry by getting a little closer to the databases, which allows us to really unleash some of the power behind Ancestry searches.

Juliana Smith has been an editor of Ancestry.com newsletters for more than eight years and is author of The Ancestry Family Historian's Address Book. She has written for Ancestry Magazine and wrote the "Computers and Technology" chapter in The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy, rev. 3rd edition. Juliana can be reached by e- mail at Juliana@Ancestry.com, but she regrets that her schedule does not allow her to assist with personal research.

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by George G. Morgan

You never know where the next clue in your genealogical odyssey will appear. Sometimes, if you're like me, you take the information provided by the only resources you have--family stories and traditions--and run with them. After a while, though, you begin to think that someone threw you a curve ball, perhaps inadvertently or perhaps not. You reexamine everything you have and then try to make some sense of it. When it doesn't make any more sense than it did before, this is called a BRICK WALL! I know that I've had any number of them, and that most of them have been cracked, broken, demolished, and/or swept away through collaboration with other researchers.

I have been seeking the details about my great-uncle Brisco Holder for more than twenty years. I have searched census records, posted messages on message boards and mailing lists, searched in libraries and archives, and tried in vain to research the veracity of family stories. All of this has been to no avail--until recently. Let me share the story as briefly as I can.

The Family Story
Regular readers of my columns, magazine articles, blog, and listeners to The Genealogy Guys Podcast have often heard me talk about my great-grandfather, Green Berry Holder. Following his service in the Confederate Army, he and his older brother walked in 1865 from Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia back to their family home near Lawrenceville, Gwinnett County, Georgia. Before the end of the year, the brothers and their parents had relocated westward to Lindale, in Floyd County, Georgia. On 27 December 1866, Green Berry married Ansibelle Penelope Swords. (The Floyd County Marriage Book, Vol. A, Page 347, # 1359) incorrectly lists her name as A. P. Sanders, and I have been able to disprove that with other sources!)

Green Berry and Penelope Swords Holder relocated in the mid-1880s to a new home in Rome, Georgia. Green Berry became a well-respected businessman, board member of two banks, a commodities and real estate speculator, and two-time Representative to the Georgia House. Throughout their years together, Penelope and Green Berry produced a fine family! Their first of six sons was born in January of 1868; the first of their six daughters was born in July of 1872. Their last child, a daughter, Elizabeth Holder, was born on 19 July 1885. She was my maternal grandmother.

Brisco Washington Holder was the fifth son born, according to his WWI draft registration record at Ancestry, on 26 March 1877. I am still seeking more information about him, but I know that he was still in Rome, Floyd County, Georgia, at the time of the election of 1906 and cast his vote, ostensibly for his father's candidacy for his first term in office in the Georgia House of Representatives. However, it must not have been much later that a problem developed.

According to accounts from my mother and her sister, which they heard from Great-Aunt Emma Dale Holder, Green Berry Holder and Brisco Holder had an argument following Brisco's "mistreatment of his mother," and Green Berry "ran him off." Use your imagination to imagine what, in 1906, could have caused such an event. Was it the use of offensive language? Sassing his mother? Slapping his mother? Disobeying her? Or was it some other sin or transgression that was socially unacceptable at the time? Your guess is as good as mine, and we will probably never know the answer.

Emma Dale Holder was the seventh child in the family (1876-1964) and Brisco was the eighth child (born the next year, 1877). Apparently these two siblings were very close and it seems she was the only one with whom he kept in touch over the years.

The family story, at least from my mother (1911-93) and my aunt (1914-2000) who apparently had it from Emma Dale, was that Brisco died "in the mid-1920s" in some Midwestern town, perhaps Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Chillicothe, etc. Boy, this was certainly a nebulous area to search. With the idea of it having been a place starting with the letter "C," I was in for an extensive and wild research journey.

My search has taken me many places in person, including most of the places that are mentioned above. I've also mined the Web and all the resources I could imagine, with wild abandon. (It was like looking for a missing cat in the house: you eventually get desperate and look in the oven, the microwave, the dryer, and the attic, although those alternatives are impossible!) It has led me to post messages on mailing lists and message boards. I have searched military records, city directories, and a host of other resources in search of Brisco.

Using Ancestry Resources
Ancestry is, without doubt, the most prolific and comprehensive database site in the world. With more than 25,000 databases in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the UK, France, Germany, and Italy, it is the mother lode of genealogical information. Of course, not everything is there, but there is a huge set of genealogical information there! Having written the The Official Guide to Ancestry.com, I really know how to use Ancestry and to search it with a huge amount of effectiveness!

The World War I Draft Registrations database was the first place I found Brisco Washington Holder. Without having found him in the 1910 federal census, Brisco's first appearance in any records was in Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, on 12 September 1918 when he registered for the draft (in the third registration). Further research with the National Personnel Records Center indicates that he did not serve in the military in WWI.

I have searched for city directories and all sorts of other record types at Ancestry, using various search strategies including spelling variations, location changes and deviations, name reversals, initials, nicknames, general searches and exact searches, and a vast number of variants--all of which you have to consider.

The Value of Collaboration
I have been tremendously successful working with the Ancestry message boards and mailing lists, with uploading my GEDCOM file from my database into the My Ancestry area, and searching and contacting other researchers. I won't lie to you; it has been an important part of my genealogical research to make these contacts and to develop collaborative relationships and friendships with these wonderful people.

Finding Brisco at Last!
While the Ancestry resources have been helpful and have given me hope, you never know where the conclusive clues will come from! Drew Smith and I are the co-hosts of The Genealogy Guys Podcast each week. One of our listeners, Sherry L. (surname withheld), sent an e-mail a couple of Saturdays ago that rocked my genealogical life!

Sherry's e-mail subject line read, "Is This Your Brisco Holder?" I will save this e-mail forever because, when I opened it, there was a link to the Missouri Death Certificates, 1910-1956 database. When I searched for Brisco Holder, I found a link to his death certificate #17351. He had not died in the 1920s; he had died on 17 May 1949 in St. Louis, St. Louis County, Missouri, at the age of seventy-two! Based on his birth date, location, and father's name, this was the correct person! (His mother's name was incorrect.)

Sherry gave me the greatest genealogical gift of my life, and I cannot thank her enough! In my next column, I will share with you the immediate research that the death certificate gave me, the reactions of the rest of my first cousins--descendants of Elizabeth Holder-- information from other people in the St. Louis area who looked at the grave for me, and where this takes us from here.

However, as you can see, publication in whatever form and collaboration with other kind and wonderful genealogists can bring your research "brick walls" to become something else.

Happy Hunting and Collaborations!
George

George's brand new book, The Official Guide to Ancestry.com, is now available from his company's website, Aha! Seminars, Inc., personally autographed by the author! Listen to The Genealogy Guys Podcast each week for fun, entertaining, and informative genealogy discussions.

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The following items were posted to the 24/7 Family History Circle blog over the past week:

• DNA Ancestry Web Site in Beta
• Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom
• Ancestry.com Online Community Creates More Than 275 Million Profiles and 3 Million Family Trees in Last Year
• An Unusual Flood Rescue
• Seeking Rose and Valerie Edwards for Sibling Reunion

The September/October issue of Ancestry Magazine is on the newsstands. Inside you'll learn about unmarked graves and potters' fields, miners in your family tree, modern people with old-fashioned businesses, and so much more. Plus, subscribers now get even more: access to the new Ancestry Magazine—Digital Edition, complete with digital-exclusive articles that you won't find anywhere else. Click here to subscribe to Ancestry Magazine at the sale price of $14.95 for a one year subscription. (For a limited time only.)

Today's image (in the upper, right-hand corner of this newsletter) is from the Library of Congress Photo Collection, 1840-2000 at Ancestry.

Old bridge, Stirling, Scotland
(Detroit Photographic Co., ca. 1905)

from Michael John Neill

Many genealogists use obituaries as a part of their research. They can easily be a clue to additional records or sources, but must be used with care. It is important to remember that the information contained in an obituary can be incorrect, misleading, or incomplete. The confusion is compounded when an obituary contains all three errors.

The deceased might have been married three times, but only the last spouse is listed in the obituary. Children of the deceased may be named, but they may not have the same set of both parents and none may be the child of the spouse listed in the obituary. Lists of children may even be incomplete, especially if there has been a family squabble or an estrangement.

Individuals listed as children may actually be step-children of the deceased. The step-parent/step-child bond may have been a very strong one and the step-parent may have been a parent to the child in all the important ways, but the obituary may not make the distinction which the genealogist typically wants to make.

And there can easily be unintentional errors due to inaccurate knowledge on the part of the obituary informant.

An obituary may be an important part of your genealogical research, but the information it contains should be used with care and as a pointer to other records. Many times the obituary's purpose is to notify newspaper readers of the death and funeral of the deceased. Those details are usually correct; other details should be used with caution.

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Month-by-Month Scrapbook of Tradition
My parents, born in the early 1900s in Newfoundland, Canada, rarely talked about their lives growing up. A few years ago, as scrapbooking came into vogue and with so much info available on the Web, I thought, "Why not do an album based on the months of the year in my parents lives?" I loved the project and it took about six months.

Life was very hard for my parents and fishing was paramount, so weddings, parties, etc. were done in the off-season. I found out what a wedding entailed and what clothes were worn, etc. I looked at deaths (viewings at home), and related traditions. They held a "Mummer's Parade" at Christmas. There were so many traditions that I'd known nothing about--what their daily life was like, how important the church was, singing--they loved creating songs--and having 'kitchen parties.'

I learned so much that I'd never known and recommend this to your readers.

Carolyn 'Whiffen' Murray

Water Can Make Tombstones Legible
I've found what I think is a very good way to take a picture of a tombstone without doing it any harm, which is the purpose of preserving our history. Take two spray bottles and fill them with plain water; nearby spring or creek water will do well. (I take two because one might quit spraying while I am out on my mission.) Take a soft bristle bench brush and lightly brush stone to get particles off, spray with water, and gently wipe off excess water with cotton cloth. Water will stick in the low letters and when picture is taken will stand out very well. I haven't tried with raised letters.

Thanks and good hunting!

Graveyard Junkie,
Steve

Keeping Heirlooms Safe
With the recent floods in so many parts of the country and fires in others, in addition to the suggestions in George Morgan's article on computer back-ups, take a look at the more material aspects of your family history. Light, dirt, temperature extremes, and humidity are the enemies of just about everything we have to save, from photographs and old journals and letters to wedding dresses, quilts, linens, and other heirlooms. Make sure these valuables are in the safest storage conditions possible, and take photographs that can be disseminated amongst other family members or offsite. That way if a disaster were to claim them, there would still be a record of their existence.

Thanks,
Lou

If you have a suggestion you would like to share with other researchers, send it to: Juliana@Ancestry.com. Thanks to all of this week's contributors!

Quick Tips may be reprinted, with credit to the submitter, in other Ancestry publications, so if you do not want your tip included in a publication other than the Ancestry Weekly Journal please state so clearly in your message.

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The year was 1807 and Europe was embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars. By this time Napoleon had solidified his hold on Western Europe and victories to the east, particularly at Friedland, would lead to the Peace of Tilsit between Russia, Prussia, and France.

Late in 1806, Napoleon had declared that no French and allied ports should allow trade with its enemy, Great Britain. Denmark was at the time neutral in the conflict, but Britain feared that it would fall to Napoleon and with it, the Danish fleet. Britain demanded custody of the fleet and upon refusal, in early September, began the bombardment of Copenhagen. After four days of bombing, Denmark surrendered its fleet of seventeen ships of the line, seventeen frigates, sixteen smaller vessels, and twenty-six gunboats to Britain. Denmark sided with France for the remainder of the war.

In March, the U.S. Congress passed "An Act to prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, from and after the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eight." Britain followed shortly after with the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which prohibited British ships from engaging in slave trade and imposed a fine of £100 per slave.

There was tension between Britain and the United States and that tension brought the countries closer to war when the H.M.S. Leopard opened fire on the U.S.S. Chesapeake to forcibly capture four alleged British deserters. Only one of the captured men was proven to be a deserter and the attack killed three men and wounded eighteen more. In response, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson issued a proclamation ordering British ships out of U.S. territorial waters.

With Britain continuing to impress U.S. sailors into service in the Royal Navy, Jefferson was pushed to further action. (In early 1808 James Madison reported the number of impressed seamen as 4,028.) In December, Congress passed the Embargo Act which prohibited all trade outside U.S. ports. While it manages to temporarily keep the country out of war, it had little impact on its desired targets and overall did more harm to U.S. merchants.

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If you'd like to see your ancestor's photograph in the Ancestry Weekly Journal, send it to Juliana@Ancestry.com.

Contributed by Susan Beyer This is a photo of my mother, Angela Lacirignola (Beyer), abt. age three, with her brother, Joseph Lacirignola, abt. age five. The photo was taken around 1919 in New York City. My mother and her brother were born in New York City to Italian immigrants.	Contributed by Joanie Hanlon I love this photo of my grandparents, Nellie Morlan Milburn (1881- 1981) and Joseph Enzely Milburn (1876-1962) in the dining room of their Mystic, Appanoose County, Iowa home, November 1949. The first thing I thought was, "That's where I got my calves!"

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Has Ancestry helped you make a significant breakthrough with your family history research? If you have an Ancestry success story you'd like to share, please send it to us. We'd love to hear about it! Click here to share your story.

Your Swedish Roots: A Step-By-Step Handbook
by Per Clemensson and Kjell Andersson

An American searching for his or her Swedish roots has many advantages, as well as some challenges. Since Sweden has not been at war for close to two hundred years, Swedish sources and archives are very extensive and complete. The records are in good order and are easy to find. In fact, the most commonly used church records are now even available on the Internet. Guidance for how to access and use these resources is found in this book.

Normally this book retails for $24.95, but for one week you can buy it in the Ancestry Store for $19.95.

The Official Guide to Ancestry.com
by George G. Morgan

Whether you are coming to Ancestry.com for the first time or have used it for years, you need The Official Guide to Ancestry.com. Written by noted genealogist and lecturer George G. Morgan, this official guide takes you inside the #1 website for family history research for an unprecedented tour.

Become more proficient with searching the site. Explore obscure databases you didn't know existed. Create and develop your own family tree. You will learn to do all of these things and more in The Official Guide to Ancestry.com. You've always known Ancestry.com was a valuable resource. Now you can learn to use it like never before.

Normally this book retails for $24.95, but for one week you can buy it in the Ancestry Store for $22.45.