And there is the story of Cary Christopher, who thought his great-grandfather was a German soldier during WWI but found out he was actually an American naval hero.

Well, recently we had a follow-up to Cary’s story that made it even more interesting. After we put the clip of Cary telling his story on Ancestry.com, we were contacted by one of Cary’s old friends and shipmates from Cary’s own time serving in the Navy.

Owen, Cary’s former shipmate, was also a member of Ancestry.com and his wife saw Cary’s video while doing some research on Ancestry.com.

According to Owen, he was reading the paper in one room when he heard his wife yell from the other, “It’s him. Honey, it’s him!”

“Who?” Owen yelled back.

“Christopher.”

“Chris who?”

“You know—him!”

When Owen finally figured out who she was talking about, he was ecstatic. He contacted us to see if we could put him in touch with Cary.

We took down Owen’s information and passed it on to Cary, in case he wanted to contact Owen. He did, and the two had a fun time connecting after so many years apart. They spent several hours on the phone catching up.

I love these kinds of connections because they just go to show you how doing your family history has a domino effect–one connection leads to another, which leads to another, and so on. Who knew when Cary made the discovery on Ancestry.com about his great-grandfather that it would help him reconnect with a former friend and crew member from his own life?

You can read the rest of the story about Cary and Owen’s reunion in the Learning Center. Plus, you can get some tips on how to make your own connections with family–past and present.

Note: This article was originally published in the November Ancestry Monthly Update.

The collection of Navy cruise books, available exclusively online at Ancestry.com, represents nearly 40 years of cruises following World War II (roughly 1950-1988) and chronicles an estimated 450,000 servicemen deployed at sea during that time. The Navy Department Library has on file an estimated 3,500 cruise books, which Ancestry.com plans to digitize and add to this collection over time.

Cruise books are modeled after yearbooks and typically include portraits of sailors, officers, and other personnel on board the ship. Other features of a cruise book may include candid photographs of crew members at work and play, details and history of the ship, and short biographies on officers. Below is a page taken from a Navy cruise book as an example.

A few famous personalities can also be found in the collection, including famed television host and comedian Johnny Carson. Carson is found in the 1946 edition of the U.S.S. Pennsylvania cruise book. Following World War II, Ens. Carson was assigned to the U.S.S. Pennsylvania, a battleship stationed in the Pacific. Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush is also found in the collection in the 1946 edition of the U.S.S. Jacinto cruise book.

Above: Ens. Carson (third row from the front, seventh from the left) on the U.S.S. Pennsylvania.

The Navy cruise books are part of the Ancestry.com U.S. Military Collection, which includes 100 million names and spans more than three centuries of American military service. Now through Nov. 13th, Ancestry.com has made its entire U.S. Military Collection searchable for free.

If you’re like me, you have family members who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. My own father spent 30 years in the Air Force. Why not take a moment this Veterans Day to see if you can learn a bit more about your military heritage and visit Ancestry.com’s U.S. Military Collection.

This tree service downtime will affect Ancestry Member Trees, OneWorldTree, some portions of My Canvas, the sections of the Home Page that are related to Member Trees, and the sections of MyFamily.com 2.0 that are related to Member Trees. Other than that, all other areas of the site will remain functional.

For the vast majority of our members living outside Mountain Daylight Time, 1:00 – 2:00 AM MDT is the same as…

Coordinated Universal Time: 07:00 – 08:00 AM
In London: 8:00 – 9:00 AM
In Melbourne: 5:00 – 6:00 PM
In San Francisco: midnight – 1:00 AM
In New York: 3:00 – 4:00 AM
In Moscow: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
In Rome: 9:00 – 10:00 AM
In Tokyo: 4:00 – 5:00 PM

(Note: I got my dates wrong, it’s Tuesday, November 10th…so just a little more waiting.)
This change will happen on Monday, November 9th, sometime during the day.

The information you enter into your original search will appear at the top left of the search results page. Clicking “Edit search” will bring up your search query allowing you to edit your search criteria. (Note: You won’t be able to edit in the left hand panel any more; all editing will be done from a form.)

Also, the Narrow by Category panel is now higher on the page, providing easier access for narrowing your search results by types of records (e.g., census records, immigration records, military records, etc.).

These changes are designed to make searching for your family on Ancestry.com faster and more efficient, resulting in even more successful discoveries about your ancestors.

Here’s how it will work:

1. Do a search. Let’s say I’m searching for my ancestor, Zebedee Hash. You will see:
   
2. To help refine the search, I now click on “Edit Search”:
   
3. You’ll see a form pre-populated with the original query:
   
4. Add in the information:
   
5. Click on the search button either at the top or bottom of the form. (We put in two search buttons to make it handy to find wherever you are in the form. They do the exact same thing.)
   
   OR
   
6. You’ll now see the summary of your search query in the panel:
   
7. Now let’s say I want to make my Birth Year exact within a range. I click on “Edit search” again, and enter my new information:
   
8. Click on the search button, and see the new result set. You’ll notice in the query summary, that the birth year range is in double quotes, telling you that you’ve marked that field exact:
   

So look for change on Tuesday, try it out, and let us know what you think.

Happy Searching!

I want to thank everyone for your participation in the search strategies webinar. We had a wonderful turnout with thousands of comments and questions.  We answered as many questions as time allowed.  We have a list of the questions asked during the webinar and we’ll be posting answers to the most popular questions and topic areas.

There were many questions about the card catalog and about topics that can be researched using the card catalog. Most of them fell into a few themes which are summarized below.

Question: How do you find the card catalog?

Answer: The link for the card catalog is on the left side of the search homepage.  The search homepage can be found by clicking on the search button in the navigation bar at the top of Ancestry.com web pages.  You can also hold your mouse over the search link at the top of the page without clicking and you will see the card catalog at the bottom of the drop down.  Here is a direct link to the card catalog and a screenshot of where you can find the links.

(Where to find links to the card catalog)

Question: How can you specify a place and a year to narrow down the list of census data collections? How can you search for a state or county census record? How do you look up individual census documents?

Answer: You can narrow census records by date and location. First, go to the card catalog and select “Census & Voter Lists” from the left side of the page under “Filter by Collection.”  Then, under “Filter by Location,” choose a  country or region.  Finally, select the year you are interested from the left side of the page.  At the top of the page, you can change the sorting order of the census records. See the drop down menu that says “Sort by.” I like to sort by “Database Title.” 

(Changing sort order in the card catalog)

To see the records for a particular state or county, repeat the first two steps above, but don’t choose a time period yet. Continue to narrow your location down to a state or county using the links on the left side of the page. The  screenshot below shows the first few counties in California. 

(Narrowing census data collections to California counties)

Finally, choose a census collection title from the list of data collections located on the right side of the page to go directly to the page with the search form and browse links for a specific census.

Question:  Where can you find cemetery records?

Answer:  You can use the search function in the card catalog to search for data collections about cemeteries or many other similar topics such as “graveyard” or “burial.” Just type “cemetery” into the title field and click “search.” Then you can narrow the results by collection type, location, and year.  The screenshot below shows where the title field and where the “filter by collection” links are located.

(Searching for cemetery in the card catalog)

Questions: How do you find collections by country? How do you research records from Germany?  How do you find records for France or Paris?

Answer:  You can use the card catalog to see a list of data collections for Germany and France.  Use the “Filter by Location” links on the left side of the page. Choose “Europe”, and then “Germany.”  As you can see in the screenshot below, there are 1,338 data collections available today for Germany.   

(German records in the card catalog)

You can also narrow the choices further by selecting a collection type such as “military.”  

Another way to search for place is to search by keyword. For example, to search for data collections about Paris, go to the card catalog and use the keyword field to input “Paris” and then click search.  For more information, you can view our webinar that focuses on European research.

Questions: How do you find military records from France during WWII? How can you find Navy records or records from other service branches from WWII?

Answer:  Many countries do not release military records. Some military records will not be made public until the country in question decides that enough time has passed such that record privacy is no longer a concern.   You can learn all about our military collections by listening to the military records webinar. In addition, Ancestry magazine published an article about World War II in May.

To find our military data collections about France, you can either search or browse the card catalog.  You could start by filtering the card catalog by “Military”, then filtering by location to “France.”  

You can also search the card catalog by keyword.  Try searching for “World War II” and for “WWII.” You may also want to search for keywords associated with the World War II such as “holocaust”.   Finally, I recommend trying a title search for “World War II” in addition to the keyword search.  Shown below is a screenshot for a search with “WWII” in the keyword field.

(Card catalog search results for WWII)

Question: Where can you find the ships records on Ancestry.com?

Answer:  Go to the card catalog and look on the left side of the page.  Click “Immigration & Emigration.”   Then scan through the collection choices. We have hundreds of data collections from passenger lists and crew lists to passports and ship pictures.

(Records about immigration and emigration including ships records)

Specific questions about errors or technical problems will be answered more quickly if you email support@ancestry.com or call the customer support center.  Our phone number is available on the bottom of the homepage and on our Contact Ancestry.com Support page.

Yesterday we made a number of additions to make it easier to get to the information you are most interested in on the Recent Member Connect Activity list.  If there has been activity from other members on Ancestry.com that is directly related to your own research activity, you’ll find this activity list on your homepage when you are logged in, as well as on the main page under the Collaborate tab.  Here’s what we’ve added to that list:

1. Recent Activity filter options

We’ve made a number of changes around how you can filter out activity from your Recent Activity list. 

First, if you have multiple family trees on Ancestry.com you can choose to filter out the activity for any of your trees.  For example, you might be invited as an editor to a tree, but not be interested in all of the activity related to that tree.  If that’s the case, you can simply un-check the box for that tree and we won’t show you that activity anymore.

Second, based on member feedback we’ve updated the types of activity your can filter out of your list.  We hope that the new categories make it easier to get to the activity you are most interested in, especially if you have a lot of activity on your list.

Third, we will now remember your filter settings for you.  So if you filter one of your trees out of the list, or a specific activity type you’re not interested in, we’ll keep that activity off of your list until you choose to re-check the boxes to add it back in.

Finally, we’ve made these filter options available from the Member Connect sections on the homepage and under the Collaborate tab, as well as on the full Recent Activity page.

 2. Top daily activity items

 Some members who have done a lot of research on Ancestry.com, or who have large family trees on the site, may have a lot of activity included on their Recent Activity list each day.  If this is the case for you, we’ve made an update that we hope will help.  If there are more than 10 activity items related to your family history research on a given day, we will initially just list the top ten items from that day on your list.  Hopefully this gets the most interesting items at the top for you.  Then if you would like to see more activity from that day you can simply expand the list for the day to see the rest of the activity items.

 3. Expanded activity display

Sometimes if a few similar things happen on the site, we may only list one item on your Recent Activity list.  For example, if another member researching your great-grandfather added three photos of him to their public family tree, you might get one activity item mentioning that three photos were added, but without giving details on each of them.  For activity items like this there will now be a new “show” link that will let you expand the activity item to see all of the details related to that item.

We’ve also made a number of other enhancements to Member Connect in the last couple months.  I just wanted to highlight a few of them for you here:

1. Links to your family tree from trees you have connected with

You can connect with another member who has common ancestors of yours in their family tree, either by saving information from their tree through an Ancestry.com Hint or through the Member Connect section of the profile page for the matching person in your tree.  If you’ve done this and later go to the matching person in the other member’s tree, we will confirm that you’ve already connected with them and will include a link for you back to the matching person in your tree.  This helps you keep track of who you’ve connected with, and also makes it easier to get back to your tree when you are checking family trees of members you’ve connected with.

 2. Explanations about information in your Recent Activity list

Some information included on your Recent Activity list may be related to research you did a while back rather than more recent research that is fresh in your mind.  If that is the case, you may not be sure why a specific item is on your list.  To learn more just put your cursor over the activity item and you will see a “?” icon on the right.  Simply click this to learn why the item was included in your list.  We’ll also often be able to provide a link for you to the related person in your family tree.

3. Information you’ve ignored from members you have connected with

Within your family tree, Member Connect lets you compare what information other members have about one of your family members with what you have.  If you’ve connected to the other member, after checking into their information and validating it you can also update your tree with the new information.  If the information doesn’t seem accurate or interesting, though, you can also select to ignore it.  Previously we didn’t label which items you have ignored from another member’s tree.  Now these items will have a simple “ignored” button, which will still let you update your tree with this information if you change your mind later.

These are just a few highlights of improvements we’ve made based, in large part on feedback from our members.  We’d love to continue to get your feedback about Member Connect so that we know how we can continue to improve it for you.  Please just email us at MemberConnectFeedback@ancestry.com with your thoughts.

The records give those of us curious about Amelia’s past a first-hand view of the investigation into the claim that she and her navigator Fred Noonan were taken prisoner and executed in Saipan, which at the time was governed by Japan. Through the years, this adaptation of Earhart’s death has become one of the many theories surrounding the 39-year-old’s mystery-riddled disappearance.

In the above letter, Congressman J. Arthur Younger requests an investigation be made into evidence from U.S. Army Sergeant Thomas Devine, who said he had seen Amelia Earhart’s grave while he was stationed in Saipan.

In the telegram below, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Douglas MacArthur II explains that Japan has identified eight people who may have knowledge about Amelia Earhart’s disappearance in Saipan.

The Earhart file is part of the Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad collection on Ancestry.com.

Explore more details of the investigation here, and decide for yourself what really happened to Amelia Earhart. And if you’re still curious, go check out the movie “Amelia” coming out tonight. After learning more about the life of this amazing aviatrix, that’s exactly what I plan to do.

Thanks to those who joined us for the Search webinar on Wednesday. We had more than 10,700 members registered for the event, which is a record ever for Ancestry.com.

We also appreciate all of the great questions. In total, we had over 1,500, so unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to address these all individually.

In this post, and over the next few days, we’ll be covering some of the common themes:

1. Can I watch the presentation again?

• Yes, you can watch our recording of the webinar by clicking here

2. Can I just see the slides? I don’t want to have to watch the whole webinar

• We will be making these slides available shortly. I’ll provide an update on this blog as soon as we’ve posted them.

3. Where can I find a list of hot keys?

• We always show a list of hot keys on every results page, on the left hand side, below the “collections”.

•  In addition, you can find an overview of hot keys in our blog post  here

4. How do I make a correction if I have information about one of my ancestors that doesn’t match what is transcribed on the record?

• Nobody knows your ancestors as well as you do.  If you know an alternate name, date or place, you can add that to the record. Once you’ve made the correction, anyone searching in the future will be able to find that record based on either your alternate, or the original transcription

You can access this from the record pages:

or on the new image view page, on those collections where it is available:

• For a more in depth overview of this, see Anne’s post about how corrections work here

5. Where is the best place to start when researching African American family history?

• We have a special feature on African American ancestry that provides information and tips here

6. Where can I find the substitute collections for 1890 (which was lost) or 1940 (which isn’t released until 2012) censuses?

• Because these collections are not available, we have compiled a number of sources, including city directories and state censuses that cover the years that would have been in these censuses. Using these, you may be able to fill in gaps and track down who was living where at those times.  Our 1940 substitute in particular contains a huge collection of city directories from about 1935 to 1945 and has over 100 million names.
• For more information on 1940 see our blog post here
• These are available via the census and voter list page or you can find them directly by clicking here for 1890 or here for 1940

7. How do you reduce hits outside of the specified date?

• If you provide us with a birth, death or other date in the record, we will calculate when that person could have been alive, and only return records that could fall into that date range. You can find a detailed explanation of how this works in our post here.
• There are some examples where some dates may appear outside of this range, for example some family histories. However, if you find a specific example we’d be grateful if you could let us know so we can look into it.

8. When I go to Ancestry.com, my pages don’t look the same as the ones you showed in the webinar, why not?

• Last year, we launched a new search interface, which had a new layout and some additional features, some of which we discussed in the webinar. If you have started using Ancestry.com since last July, it’s likely you are using the new search interface.
• However, following feedback from experienced users (including much debate on this board) we have continued to make the “Old” search available for those users who joined before this time. If you did not recognise the pages we showed, you might be using “Old Search”
• The webinar was aimed at beginner to intermediate users, so it focused on the tools available in New search.

If you are using Old search, your screen will look like this, with a link to new search at the top right hand side of the page.

• At any time, you can return to old search by clicking on the same link in the same position.

9.  Is Tony from Yorkshire, Indiana, or New Zealand…?

• Some good guesses… but not right, I’m from Hereford, England and moved with my family to California in 2007

10. This webinar was too basic for me – will you be doing an “advanced” webinar?

• We’ve been really pleased that the majority of people found this webinar useful, and we are now considering options for extending this.
• In discussing within the team, it seems to make sense that a more advanced webinar should focus on particular topics, ie Searching for records in the South or Searching using specific collections. We’d love to get your ideas on what might be most useful to the greatest number of people.

Tony