Comments on: County Land Ownership Atlases—Now with Names

By: oldbuckhouse

oldbuckhouse — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:12:09 +0000

PS…

Before I commented under this Blog, I sent a note to customer service. I also checked the Search Blog, because this seems to be a situation for them.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a place to comment. Yes, I could have started one, but then ran across this.

By: oldbuckhouse

oldbuckhouse — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:07:56 +0000

I just love this database. Probably found out how my g-grandfather met g-grandmother.

I do have a suggestion/question. When I input a name to be searched, shouldn’t this category be within the results, rather than having to search it separately?

And, if this database has been programmed for name search, would it show-up under, Maps and Photos?

By: Issac

Issac — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 03:37:21 +0000

Thanks a lot for the informatics map.

By: Loretta

Loretta — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 16:32:26 +0000

I’ve discovered my problem. When I printer the image, I made ancestry.com a “trusted” site. Apparently that messed everything up. When I removed it from the trusted list, the database works like it is supposed to do.

By: Loretta

Loretta — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 14:12:45 +0000

I found one relative, the image downloaded, everything went well. After that, I have been unable to get anything. I have found several people in the index, but when I click on the image icon, I am sent to another page that has nothing to do with the map. Often it is the home page, and sometimes to another page, but never to the actual image of the map I want.

I have tried this over two days, and it still won’t work. I am frustrated.

By: Issac

Issac — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 08:03:31 +0000

I think the MAP will be helpful for several purposes.

By: Sue

Sue — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 22:06:17 +0000

Searching for NE land records. The browse list does not include Franklin County. Perhaps the complete list of counties could be given with a note that there are no records to date for that county on Anc. As it is presented it looks like Anc. overlooked that county. Thank you.

By: Sue

Sue — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:58:52 +0000

OK, the first county I searched was there. What’s with the search engine? My search provides an example of the difficulty with Anc. search parameters. I know the person’s full name: Charles Edney James. (Land records may not have or use all.)I know the county and the town, Anc. doesn’t want/use both for my ex. Mansfield, Piatt, Illinois, USA. Anc. only fills in Mansfield, Illinois, USA without the county. WHY? I can enter Piatt County, Illinois, USA, without a town. The first result is for someone with the correct first name and surname for land in a DIFFERENT county. The second result was my Charles shortened to Chas in the group of communities in Piatt. I recognize the names. Chas is a smart result. OK, I can deal with Mansfield not being there. As an Anc. user I want the system to provide results on my two limiters there in the initial results. There is no obvious option for exact match except for date. But wait! “Using Default Settings” can be changed to a type of “exact match.” Anc. is changing the description on the search template.Please be more consistent. Now I prefer a reasonable priority given to the name(or initial) of the person with the needed surname. Could the parameters be set to allow the searcher to set a priority for exact location match or alternatively to find others with the same surname in the chosen county as possibilities BEFORE giving results in different counties and states? Could searchers require the results to be in the specific county and state? If I search by “surname only” in the county, I do find my person and relatives. When a researcher knows enough about the person/family to search in a particular state and county, Anc. should be able to limit the results. At present, the researcher may wonder if somewhere deep down in the nearly 7,000 hits (as in my original search) for the “specific surname in the precise county and state” there might be a hit which is relevant. Let me search and know that my given input get results for 10, 100 or even 500 possibilities. Heaven help the newby get the best results when searching. I have been searching my family history for more than 30 years and I keep plugging. There is extra explanatory info for the various resources on Anc. Interestingly if I browse the County Land Ownership Maps,there is a listing by county and state to go directly to them with various dates. In the case of Piatt County, Illinois, there are only two. The results show several more possibilities. I don’t know where these dates of maps originate and see no explanation. It would be nice if the searcher to go to the specific county and state and search from the narrower set of records. I managed one search for my above individual and Anc. provided less than 6 hits. Unfortunately, I can’t replicate that search for those results!

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:55:28 +0000

Great addition. I just found that my ggg-grandfather and 4g-grandfather each owned land in Stark County, Illinois, Fancy Creek Twp. Thanks.

By: Jo

Jo — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:31:56 +0000

Thanks for replying, Paul. I appreciate it.