There are three different ways that I use to search on FamilySearch, and it depends on my search goal and the availability of indexing specific databases:
2) By Searching a specific Indexed Record Collection, using name, date and location fields (this post)
I will address each of these three ways in a separate blog post.
For Searching a specific indexed record collection, I start on the Historical Record Collections page (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/list):
A user can either scroll down the list of over 1,500 record collections, or narrow the search by searching for a specific locality or topic (using the "Filter by collection name" field in the upper left corner of the sidebar) or by using location, date or collection filters in the left-hand sidebar.
In the screen below, I started typing "massachusetts" into the "Filter by collection name" field. The list of 17 collections with "Massachusetts" in their title:
Alternatively, I could choose the "United States" link from the Place filter list, then pick "Massachusetts" from the list of states that appear:
If I select "Massachusetts" from the list of U.S. states, I get the same list of Massachusetts collections:
Note that the list includes collections with photo icons to the left of the collection name - those collections have record images. Some collections have a number in the "Records" column - those collections are indexed. Some collections say "Browse images" in the "Records" column - those collections are not indexed (see Post 3 in this series).
In the screen above, I right-clicked the link for the first collection listed. I can Open the link in a new Tab, in a new Window, etc. Why would I want to do this? Because FamilySearch does not keep the filtered collection list in the browser stack - if I come back to the Historical Record Collections list (by using the browser back button), I get the entire list of over 1,500 collections and have to enter my filters again. So I open a specific collection in a new Tab, and then can come back to the list of filtered collections in its own Tab.
In the selected record collection, I can enter search parameters into the search form for my person of interest. In the screen below, I entered a first name (Isaac), a last name (Seaver), a Birthplace (Massachusetts), and a birth year range (1820 to 1825):
I clicked on the "Search" button and there were two matches, both of which are for my 2nd-great-grandfather:
As you can see, I quickly found pertinent records in a specific record collection. Those two items were also on the match list when I did a Global Search in Post 1 of this series, but they were not as easy to find. With a common name, using the specific collection search works well, as long as you know the location, and/or life events, and/or relationships of the person if interest.
Remember the prime adage of using a computer: The computer does exactly what you told it to do. If you aren't getting the results you expect, it's usually "user error."
The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/04/how-i-search-on-familysearch-post-2.html
copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver
1 comment:
I love the idea of right clicking on the record group to search in a new window! That was always my frustration that there was no way to get back to your filtered list without having to start over. Thanks. I loved all three of your posts. Well thought out and explained.
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