wlfraed@ix.netcom.com writes: > Singhals fed this fish to the penguins: > > > theory, the ?ieber would work. As you say, though, it wouldn't > > find > > <blink><blink> Guess I hadn't considered the wild cards > would work on single characters at the beginning of a name (I've > been using xxx* style wild cards). Hmmm...Cheryl is correct here in that the Ancestry search engine doesn't support leading wildcards. The Ancestry Daily News had an article about using wildcards when searching database at Ancestry on or about Oct. 17, 2001 and I quote from that article: "Due to the nature and size of the data being searched and the need to deliver speedy search results, the use of wildcards is restricted to keywords and names that have at least the first three letters specified." The wildcard symbol ? will find exactly ONE unknown or missing character and the wildcard symbol * will find zero to five unknown or missing characters. you can extend the number of missing characters with ?? finding exactly TWO missing characters and ??? finding three) and ** finding more than 5 missing characters (not sure what the upward limit is on this one and using *** doesn't seem to extend the results beyond what ** is finding). Joan JYoung6180@aol.com

> <snip> > > Hmmm...Cheryl is correct here in that the Ancestry search engine > doesn't support leading wildcards. The Ancestry Daily News had an > article about using wildcards when searching database at Ancestry on > or about Oct. 17, 2001 and I quote from that article: "Due to the > nature and size of the data being searched and the need to deliver > speedy search results, the use of wildcards is restricted to > keywords and names that have at least the first three letters > specified." > > The wildcard symbol ? will find exactly ONE unknown or missing > character and the wildcard symbol * will find zero to five unknown > or missing characters. you can extend the number of missing > characters with ?? finding exactly TWO missing characters and ??? > finding three) and ** finding more than 5 missing characters (not > sure what the upward limit is on this one and using *** doesn't seem > to extend the results beyond what ** is finding). > > Joan <JYoung6180@aol.com> May I ask how one used the Keywords on Ancestry.com, how are they used? I am new to all of this. Thank you, Valerie