Hi all Rather like the first incarnation of new familysearch, the New Search on Ancestry was absolutely useless IMHO When I heard that old search was being phased out I was like you, outraged Neither did I get their survey, their claimed 2% old search users is frankly laughable, I have since filled in the survey but it appears to be aimed at proving their theory rather than any real survey But I looked a again at New Search and after playing around with it find there have been vast improvements to it since last I tried it, rather similar to new familysearch which is a whole lot more usable than when it first appeared on the scene I am not saying it will do all we may require of Old Search but I would suggest at least trying it out before dismissing it out of hand When you first search with New Search you get a results page with two tabs, "Records" and "Categories" Records is the default and useless in my opinion So switch to categories and you get a similar returns page to old search Under each field in the search page is "Restrict to exact" and an arrow, select that and you get several more categories, these can be selected differently for each field if required It takes some getting used to but I will persevere in my testing So far I have found that it duplicates some returns in categories, annoying but not insurmountable I also found wild cards don't appear to work in some cases but I am finding my way around that I am not saying its perfect, far from it but I will keep trying it out, come the day we may have to use it so its best to be prepared don't you think Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) On 01/07/2013 18:10, Linda Staunton wrote: > Thanks for that I've told them exactly what I think of new search. > > >> Hi, >> I have just read the latest Lost Cousins news;letter and it appears >> Ancestry are thinking of combining the Old Search with the New >> Search, effectively getting rid of it. They are seeking comments on >> it from users so, if like me, you find this search far superior, >> please click on the link and fill it in. >> http://ancestry.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8ubNXU8IiQcxqVD >> >> Jacqui

I've worked with all the different versions of Ancestry including Aust, UK and library versions. I certainly prefer the Old Search. I think a lot of the problems are because they don't have Advanced Search and Exact Matches as defaults, and you don't automatically get options for year ranges. What I really hate is when you go to Refine Search and they make you re-insert every criteria rather than alter a just a date range for example. It's particularly galling when you've set your Collection Priority to a specific country and they make out you're an idiot and should be looking worldwide. Peter