Advanced Searching
When searching databases, I often catch myself overlooking some of the great search options that are available. I find an interesting database, enter a surname, and if an ancestor doesn't jump out of the crowd and bite me, I'm outta there. With common surnames, it's easy to get discouraged and just toss that line aside. It doesn't have to be that way though. Huge sets of results from some databases can be copied into spreadsheets and sorted in a number of ways, making it easier to narrow down the list.

For instance, using a database like the California Deaths, 1940-97, a search for Charles Kelly turns up one hundred and thirty-two results. Since the data is sorted by death date in the database, it can be difficult to compare various entries of interest without much transcribing, clicking, and backtracking, which can be frustrating. By copy/pasting all the results screen into an Excel spreadsheet, I could sort the data by the various fields that were included in the database (surname, given name, middle name, sex, birth date, death date, birth place, death place, Social Security number, mother's maiden name, and father's surname). A sort by birth place narrowed the search for Charles Kellys who were born in NY to nine and one with birth place unknown. If I had only a birth date the data could be sorted by date. (Although, since Excel doesn't allow the correct formatting for dates previous to the 1900s, a separate column had to be created in which I just entered the year in numeric form for sorting purposes. Another option would be the free add-in that Beau Sharbrough mentions in his article, "Rootsworks: Spreadsheets—Census"(see links below).

Another advantage of sorting all the results, is that down the road, these records can be helpful in sorting out others in the area with the same name as your ancestor.

When the Surname is Also A Given Name
One reader wrote me about the difficulties she is having with the surname George. Since I have spent much time searching for ancestors with the surname Dennis, this is a problem I am all too familiar with. The trouble is in how some databases are formatted. If there are not separate fields for the surname, the database has no way of differentiating what is a given name and what is a surname. Fortunately, many databases, like the Census indexes at Ancestry.com do allow for searching by surname alone.

It is also important to note that an advanced search is necessary to specify that it is a surname. If you were to search the database individually (one with no field available for 'surname'), the database sees the term as a keyword and searches all the text in the database for matches. Whereas, if you use the advanced search template (http://www.ancestry.com/search/main.htm), including the surname in the surname field, it will only search surname fields in the database for the name (in the databases that are formatted with separate fields for surnames).

Advanced searches are also helpful since they allow you to specify more information that can narrow the search. The downside of this is that by specifying too much information, you may rule out the very hit you seek. Even given names, when abbreviated can cause problems. How often have you seen initials or abbreviations like Chas for Charles, Jas for James, Robt for Robert, Thos for Thomas, etc.? When these abbreviations appear in the database and you specify the entire first name, the search will not return hits for those names. If you think that the chances of this are slim, or that these abbreviations only occurred in older records, consider the following from the Social Security Death Index:

Chas—3160 hits
Thos—631 hits
Jas—231 hits
Robt—359 hits
The initial "A"—151498 hits

• Include the terms 'genealogy' or 'family history' in your search
  
• Use Boolean search commands like 'and,' 'or,' 'not,' or 'near' to help narrow your search. Example: 'lake and genealogy not county'
  
• Specify a location
  
• Include any unusual given names that may be in the family tree.
  

Juliana Smith is the editor of the Ancestry Daily News and author of The Ancestry Family Historian's Address Book. She has written for Ancestry Magazine and Genealogical Computing. Juliana can be reached by e-mail at: editor@ancestry-inc.com, but regrets that she is unable to assist with personal research.