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.

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

I’d like to remind everybody that we will be running a free webinar on the best Strategies for Searching Ancestry.com this evening at 8:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time.

This webinar is designed for beginning to intermediate members of Ancestry.com. To attend the webinar, please register here.

We’re delighted that we already have more than 10,000 registrants – and look forward to have you all join us this evening.

Tony

The search team is excited about our free online webinar about searching Ancestry.com on October 14th at 8:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time. In this webinar, we will show you the best strategies for searching Ancestry.com’s thousands of databases. Improving your search strategies will help you to find more information about your ancestors.
It can take time to learn all the details of a search engine and keep up with new features. We’ll explain how to find more records and adapt your search strategies as you look beyond census records. We will start with a helpful overview and then provide step-by-step instructions for using several of the search engine’s features. This webinar is designed for beginning to intermediate members of Ancestry.com. To attend the webinar, please register here.

Looking forward to seeing you all soon!

Laura

Patricia S. asked “When can we expect more Naval records–specifically for WWII?”  Right now, we have several significant collections of naval records online.  Information about many sailors who served eary in the 19th century can be found in this database.  An index to the pension records of those who served in the Navy during the Civil War is available here.  Specific to World War II, we have images of the muster rolls for the men who served on aircraft carriers.  Over time, we will add muster rolls for sailors who served on other naval vessels during World War II and we will be digitizing at the Naval Library in Washington, DC the cruise books (similar to yearbooks) that were often published at the conclusions of long voyages, containing pictures of the men on the ship and information about them.

Ron F. asked “How can you find out about medals … earned during the wars?”  As we talked about during the webinar, soldiers and sailors who served in the various wars have service files and those service files should be the first place you go to in order to find out what medals were earned.  Before World War I, service file records are stored at the National Archives in Washington, DC.  For later wars, the service files are at the National Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO.  If you need a replacement for a medal that was earned, but later lost, you can find helpful information here.

YolyB. wrote about an uncle that is believed to have been an aide-de-camp to General Patton during World War II and asked whether her uncle’s service record would be helpful in providing information about this.   The National Archives has just published a helpful guide to finding information about what particular soldiers did during World War II.  In addition to the records mentioned in this guide, the National Archives has published an extensive 119-page guide to its holdings of military service records that can be obtained for free from the National Archives by calling 866-272-6272 and asking for Reference Information Paper 109, which is titled Military Service Records at the National Archives.  Operational records from the various World War II military units and leaders are at the National Archives’ facility at College Park, Maryland.  Since those records are voluminous, it would be best to start with record sources such as the uncle’s service file and use what is found in that file to help narrow down when and where the uncle would have served as an aide-de-camp.  Then you could consult with an archivist in College Park for help in determining what operational records might add further details to the relationship between the uncle and the general.

Sharon W. asked “Can we get maps of the battles that our Dads fought and maybe brief descriptions for the battles?”  The National Archives has extensive collections of battlefield maps from World War II.  Call the National Archives at 866-272-6272 and ask for a free copy of Reference Information Paper 79, titled World War II Records in the Cartographic and Architectural Branch of the National Archives.  If you know which specific battles you are interested in learning more about, articles about the battle likely were published in the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.  Ancestry has digitized copies of the Pacific and European editions of that newspaper published during World War II and the period of Japan occupation that followed, and we also have digitized issues published during World War I.  In addition, we may have images of the battles of interest in our collection of images of war and conflict, which covers all wars in which the United States fought.  Finally, we have digitized the complete set of newsreels produced by the United States government during World War II — footage from many battles is available this way.

Suzette A. asked “Why did they cut off the ends of World War I [draft registration] cards for African Americans?”  The reason for this lies in the fact that during World War I (and World War II), troops were segregated by race.  Cutting a corner off of the draft registration cards made it possible to find African American cards quickly so that the draft boards could quickly determine how many African American men had registered for the draft.

Marilyn W. asked, “Is there anything dealing with the frontier wars and people who fought in them?”  The short answer is “YES!”  The long answer is that what exactly can be found for any particular person depends on whether that person was an officer or an enlisted man, and on whether that person served during peacetime or during a time of war.  Usually, people who served on the western frontier were enlistment men in the Regular Army, meaning the army that existed continuously, even during peacetime.  During times of war, the Regularly Army was often augmented by volunteer troops raised by states and so during the Civil War there were some volunteer forces who served in the “Wild West” — including some loyal forces from Southern states who were sent to serve in the West.  We have digitized and indexed enlistment registers for the Regular Army for the period 1798-1914.  Many of those men served, at least for a time, in the West.  Also, we just added images of Returns from the United States Army’s military posts for the years 1800-1916.  If you know where an ancestor of interest served, you can likely find information about him in these records, including information about the battles in which he fought.  These returns are now being indexed by our Ancestry World Archives Project volunteers.  For more information about how you can help in keying these records, click here.

Three of our U.S. record specialists will walk you through our military records—the largest online collection of military records available—and show you what we have available for each major U.S. conflict. They will also teach you about common military records (e.g., muster rolls, pension files, draft cards, etc.) and show you what each record reveals about your ancestor.

Register for the “Military Records on Ancestry.com” webinar.

View a list of our other upcoming and archived webinars. (All archived webinars can be viewed at your convenience.)

We’re hosting a webinar this Thursday, May 14^th, 8 P.M. Eastern Time, on how to plan the perfect family reunion. Guest speaker George Morgan, author of Your Family Reunion: How to Plan It, Organize It, and Enjoy It, will guide you through the entire process of planning a reunion, whether it’s a backyard barbecue or a multi-day event for the extended family.

We also have several other webinars coming up (“Military Records on Ancestry.com” and “Getting Started on Ancestry.com”) that you can sign up for, and a host of archived webinars you can watch at your convenience.

Visit our webinar archive to sign up for any and all of the above. And make sure to bookmark the page and go back frequently to see what new webinars are on the horizon.

Sign up for the “Planning a Perfect Reunion” webinar.

Visit the Webinar Archive to see what other webinars are available. (You can also visit this link to view an archived version of the “Planning a Perfect Family Reunion” webinar if you are viewing this post after May 14th.)