Genealogy Chat

Hi Does anyone have any tips for searching Ancestry ? Particuarly the wildcard searching. I'm fairly technical and have loads of experience working with large databases in my day to day job - but I just cant get the * or ? wildcard searches to work. It keeps telling me 'there are too many records'. Also on some of the screens there is a 'name proximity' option - now whats that about? Any info gratefully received. Cheers...Paul (Paula's Brother)

Hi Paul If you get the answer to the wildcard search I'd love to know too. Trudy

I can't get it either and manage without using it. It seems to throw up just too much junk.I use my imagination instead! Jess

To be able to use the Wildcard search, you need to have at least 3 letters at the beginning of the word. I always use wildcards, especially for names I know can be mispelt, but which usually have the first 3 letters correct. Where you can't use a wildcard, use the soundex for surnames only. It is very useful when the letter that may be wrong is the second one in. You can't use both a wildcard and a soundex search together. If you have problems locating a certain town in a certain county, try just putting the county in the Keyword box. If you need to know anything else, let me know :)

Thanks Tracy The 3 character minimum solves my * search problem. Have you had any joy with ? searching. I am trying to find george grubb. and was hoping to use George Gr?bb to weed out all the Gribb's, Grobb's, Grabb's etc. Thanks again .... Paul Sorry - just solved my own problem - looks like you have to have a 3 char minimum before any wildcard. This renders the ? seach fairly useless for the start of any names - doh