Since our list is quiet, I would like to ask for some help. I have a full Ancestry subscription, but I am having a devil of a time navigating. I can put a full name in with the birth year, with state or province. It gives me all sorts of totally unrelated resources. These resources are not alphabetical. It becomes a nightmare to search. If I use a middle initial (instead of the full middle name), it gives me everyone with the middle initial; in spite of a totally different first name or even surname. Also, if I go in a later time, it no longer gives me what I already knew was there (from a previous visit). How can I refine my searches to the place I expect them to be? And is there a way to save resources (census, trees etc) so that I can go directly back to them? Seems like I must already know the full name, birth/death date and place, plus who they married, in order to search. If I knew that already, I wouldn't need Ancestry. Thanks for any and all help.

Here are a couple of things I do; they may or may not be of any use to you. One idea is to selectively set various fields to be "Exact". You can even put something like mos* in the surname field and still set it to be "Exact" rather than default. It's the Default which allows for so many variations to appear. The other idea which I find quite useful on occasion is to enter something in the Keywords box -- probably half-way down the screen after all the name details. For example I might put "nova scotia" (incl. the quotes) in the Keywords box, and sometimes force it by checking the Exact box alongside. Hope this helps, John Cordes Halifax, Nova Scotia On [2011-11-13 at 09:55am] sara5d <sara5d@optonline.net> wrote: > Since our list is quiet, I would like to ask for some help. I have a full > Ancestry subscription, but I am having a devil of a time navigating. > > I can put a full name in with the birth year, with state or province. It > gives me all sorts of totally unrelated resources. These resources are not > alphabetical. It becomes a nightmare to search. If I use a middle initial > (instead of the full middle name), it gives me everyone with the middle > initial; in spite of a totally different first name or even surname. > > Also, if I go in a later time, it no longer gives me what I already knew was > there (from a previous visit). > > How can I refine my searches to the place I expect them to be? > And is there a way to save resources (census, trees etc) so that I can go > directly back to them? > > Seems like I must already know the full name, birth/death date and place, > plus who they married, in order to search. If I knew that already, I > wouldn't need Ancestry. > > Thanks for any and all help.

On 13/11/2011 9:50 AM, "sara5d" <sara5d@optonline.net> wrote: > Since our list is quiet, I would like to ask for some help. I have a full > Ancestry subscription, but I am having a devil of a time navigating. > > I can put a full name in with the birth year, with state or province. It > gives me all sorts of totally unrelated resources. These resources are not > alphabetical. It becomes a nightmare to search. If I use a middle initial > (instead of the full middle name), it gives me everyone with the middle > initial; in spite of a totally different first name or even surname. // cut // > > Thanks for any and all help. > Welcome to their NEW search engine. As bad as the old engine was, at least it sort of worked. I too find it impossible to find things I had previously found on their site. Glad to hear that you had better results using the advanced mode. I will have to try again using that method. ---------------------------------- May you live in interesting times. ­ an old Chinese curse ---------------------------------- Arrowhead Images Arnold Palmer ----------------------------------