FamilySearch Full-Text Search Is a Genealogy Goldmine

The  relatively new FamilySearch Full-Text Search feature continues to grow - every day.  

1)  For those unfamiliar with Full-Text Search, this feature has indexed the digital images on FamilySearch for selected record collections, made the indexes searchable, and then transcribed each image using Artificial Intelligence, and provided an ability to download the image, a summary of the image text, and a source citation for the image.  

These capabilities are very helpful for searching, finding, saving and reading the text of a record.  Having a "full-text search" for land records, probate records, and other text-rich records is a genealogical goldmine - the researcher can search for their ancestor in a specific place (country, state/province, county, etc.) and may be able to find records for their ancestor as a primary person in the record or as a family member, witness, neighbor or other associate in a record.

2)  Here is the top of home page for Full-Text Search:

And the next screen down for the page has a list of the FamilySearch Full-Text Search categories that have been imaged and transcribed:

Note that FamilySearch lists only five broad categories:

1.  U.S. Land and Probate Records, 1630-1975

2.  Mexico, Notarial Records, 1600-1909

3.  US Plantation Records cs. 1700s-1865

4.  Victoria, Australia Probates, 1853-1978

5.  Auckland, New Zealand Wills and Probates, 1834-1997.

3)  On the first screen above I entered "+smith" to search for all Smith words in the complete Full-Text Search collections.  When I clicked on "Search" I received a very long list of 25,319,215 results.

I clicked on the "Filters by Collection" button on to left of the screen to see the list collections that have the word "Smith".  Here is the top of the very long alphabetical list with the number of "Smith" entries.

• Alabama, Wills and Deeds, ca. 1700s-2017 (178,363)
• Alaska, Wills and Deeds, ca. 1700s-2017 (171)
• Arizona, Wills and Deeds, ca. 1700s-2017 (33,683)
• Arkansas, Wills and Deeds, ca. 1700s-2017 (145,756)
• Australia, New South Wales, Probate Records, 1939-1949 (63)

• Australia, Biographies, 1000 to 9999 (50)
• Australia, Deaths, 1788 to 2006 (50)
• Australia, Migrations, 1791 to 1999 (11)
• Australia, New South Wales, Deaths, 1942 (55)
• Australia, New South Wales, Legal, 1880 to 1958 (53)

• Australia, New South Wales, Military Service, 1826 (11)
• Australia, Northern Territory, Legal, 1893 to 1959 (3)
• Australia, Queensland, Deaths, 1870 to 1964 (140)
• Australia, Queensland, Probate Records, 1710-1980 (1,396)
• Australia, Queensland, Properties, 1825 to 1990 (11)

• Australia, Religious, 1709 to 2005 (50)
• Australia, South Australia, Will and Probate Records (12,657)
• Australia, Tasmania, Legal, 1787 to 1982 (1)
• Australia, Tasmania, Probate Records, 1824-1971 (688)
• Australia, Tasmania, Properties, 1816 to 1960 (11)

• Australia, Victoria, Legal, 1704 to 9150 (25)
• Australia, Victoria, Military Service, 1852 to 1981 (25)
• Australia, Victoria, Wills, Probate and Administration Files, 1841-1926 (173,677)
• Australia, Western Australia, Biographies, 1000 to 1990 (143)
• Australia, Western Australia, Legal, 1176 to 1995 (13)

• Australia, Western Australia, Probate Records, 1775-1990 (24,325)
• British Colonial America, Connecticut Colony, Legal, 1635 to 1960 (6,467)
• British Colonial America, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Legal, 1636 to 1894 (682)
• British Colonial America, Saybrook, Legal, 1854 to 1937 (36)
• California, Wills and Deeds, ca. 1700s-2017 (483,759)

I don't have enough time or blog editor space to list them all - there are thousands of databases on this list!  Check the list yourself for your places of interest.

There are many different record types - not just the ones listed on the Full-Text Search page.  There are collections for many countries, especially for English-speaking countries (often separated by states/provinces, and then by counties) at this time.

4)  I used "+Smith" because it is a very common last name and will show most of the available databases.  Note that there are multiple "Smith" results in one image on many of the results.

When I used "+Seaver" I received "only" 131,049 results in only a fraction of the databases shown for "+Smith."

The Smith numbers were "only" about 13 million two weeks ago.  They will likely be much higher next week and in later weeks as FamilySearch adds more and more records to this feature - searchable, transcribed and able to be saved.  

5)  Note that Full-Text Search does not have EVERY deed or probate record for every county in every state or country, for all years of records.  Some collections are still incomplete but growing!  The feature now has so many imaged and trancribed records that a dedicated researcher can find many of their ancestors in this feature by judiciously searching for a given name, a surname, a state, a county, a year range, and a record type.  However, a researcher wil still have to search again in the future as the collections grow. 

Another caveat:  These collections appear to NOT include records that can only be seen by a non-LDS church member at a FamilySearch Library or Center.

6)  If you are "stuck" on a research problem, try using FamilySearch Full-Text Search.  Learn how to effectively Filter the results to find records for your search subjects.  You may be pleasantly surprised.  I have been surprised many times over the past seven months since this feature was announced at RootsTech 2024 by FamilySearch.

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