How do you search Ancestry.com? Since it’s one of the biggest names in genealogy, you’ve likely been using Ancestry.com for years—maybe even since you first started your genealogy journey. But sometimes the way we’ve been using it isn’t the best or most effective.
The site continues to evolve, rolling out several new features since fall 2023—I’ve rounded up some of them in the sidebar at right. But the site’s fundamental infrastructure is the same as it’s always been. And in this article, we’ll go back to the time-tested basics of searching Ancestry.com.
ACCESSING GENEALOGY RECORDS
There are three basic ways you can look for records online: searching by keyword, searching by collection or type of record, or browsing.
Ancestry.com also provides hints, which connect records in Ancestry.com’s data base with people in your family trees. Learn more about those here <www.familytreemagazine.com/websites/ancestry-help/get-the-most-ancestry-shaky-leaf-hints>.
Searching by Keyword
’s basic search form is the one you see by default on your For You page. That search form has just basic fields—first and last name, estimated birth year and possible location—making
