> 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." Hello all, I am truly not trying to start something here, but I am absolutely positive that there is a way to use a leading wildcard with Ancestry, as I have done it successfully with 2 different names. It cannot be done with your initial search, only when you are refining your results. I am not sure if I explained it before, I am a newbie myself, and found this method accidentally, not even knowing at the time that it was called a "wildcard" search. May I explain it again? I will do it with the specific search I did this for. First I did Search Records for Joseph Polasik, soundex, US, all states, census. There were 659 results for 1930, the census year I was missing. I clicked on that census, got the first 10 names of the index and the refine search box. That is when I used the wildcard. I entered Joseph ?olasik, soundex, US, all states. Over 5000 results with that, so I switched to his wife's name, Pelagia, again with wildcard. That gave me 30 matches. I got a Pelagia Rolasik in Florida that sounded good, so I then did an exact search for Rolasik in Florida, and there they were, Joseph, Pelagia, and daughter. I went and then found another ancestor, August Pranke indexed as August Brunke, with this same technique. I realize now that there are other ways I could have found them, but I won't complain, this one has worked for me. I think it actually helped me to be a newbie, I didn't know what I wasn't supposed to do! Carolyn Cptoehedd@aol.com