Secret Trick for Searching Genealogy Records on Ancestry
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.ค. 2024
- I used my famous data extraction trick to find a missing boy in the census. This is a must see video.
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Learn my secret trick for researching records and how I found a missing 8 year old boy in the 1870 U.S. Census with this unique strategy anyone can use.
There is a handout for this episode. Information about how to to get the handout below.
Note: You will need a recent version of Excel for this trick to work.
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TIMING
0:00 Intro
0:15 Missing ancestor finally located
1:50 How do I know I found the right ancestor?
2:57 Tried multiple spellings and search criteria
3:39 Extract data from census and filter
4:55 How to extract from the entire census roll
5:18 Setting up excel worksheet for data extraction
6:42 How to extract after the first page
7:19 Tracking image numbers because it’s important later
8:26 Note - You need a later version of excel to do this!
9:23 How to freeze panes on worksheet
10:12 How to create filters
10:26 Searching with filters and still no results?
11:19 Filtering by age, gender & occupation
13:44 Should the transposed name be corrected?
14:30 Story behind why the ancestor is in another house.
15:36 Updating the research notes with source citation.
#Genealogy #GenealogyTV #FamilyHistory
Music Credits for Song on Word Tree Open
Circus Waltz Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
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Thank you for TWO lessons in one: How to find someone in a census, and how to use Excel for record extractions! I am grateful that you are willing to share your knowledge and experience. God bless you.
Thank you.
I needed a refresher in Excel. I haven't hardly used it since the 90s. I forgot all the cool little tricks you can do with it.
📍TIP: in standard search within Ancestry, you were using full names “Henry” or short names “Gus”. Try using the asterisk * as open parameter extension. G* or Gu* or Hen*. This asterisk can also work before, as well as both before and after (no spaces). * en * for all named that contain EN (Henry, Henly, Henley, etc.); or * us * returns Gus, Gustav, August, Gustavus, etc. - Asterisk is a very old school, hard code used almost everywhere. Asterisk is programming language built into nearly all systems. I had to put spaces in the above examples because asterisk is so heavily part of programming that it wouldn’t show in this message because it means something different in programming than the visual character itself.
Good point for the comment readers... I have used that trick many times. In this case, it was more about demonstrating the extraction and filtering using Excel. Thanks for sharing Kirk.
Excellent point! When I have a surname variation I use this technique but you have to be sure to use the spaces: "surname / surname"
I found in the NC digital archives a “William Hendley bible”.
Is he in your family?
Thanks for 'How to find someone in a census, and how to use Excel for record extractions!
I am researching 'LAWS' in the UK. My Gt-Gt-Gt Grandfather Henry Laws 1800-1880 a Master Mariner 7th child of 15 of John Laws Rope-maker of London gu-estimately 1741-1818 all a bit vague prior to Henry's marriage in 1825. been at this game 50 years collected a huge database of Laws worldwide to no avail
This will be very helpful for me. I still have my big brick wall that I have to work on breaking
This was Great Connie! Thank you. For those of us that are visual learners, the detailed step by step was perfect.
Awesome. Thanks for supporting the channel.
Maybe Gus was living with kin
You are a genealogy tek genius presenter who draws us into the details effortlessly bravo!!!
Thanks
Great lesson! I have paged through many, many censuses but I never thought to extract the data that way. I disagree about making the correction and I'd love to hear what Ancestry has to say. I would have changed it and chosen as a reason INCORRECT IN IMAGE. You aren't actually changing the original transcription; you are adding an alternative search term. This means that other people who are searching for Gus will be able to find him even though the surname and given name were switched. Notice that the boy above him was also switched. I would have corrected his name as well.
I just made my own comment about this and agree with you. I amm interested in the answer as well. I understand that corrections are to make finding the person easier. --- thanks
You are absolutely correct.
She is dead wrong (pardon the pun) in stating that changing the index changes the original record as she does at 16:03. A “correction” to any Ancestry index does not change the original record, it only changes the index. Neither the Ancestry digital image of the census record, nor its index is the original record. It is a digital copy and although it can be thought of as a primary source, it is only so because it includes the image. The original record is the original piece of paper from which the image was taken. Obviously, it will not be changed, since nobody is going to rush down to the National Archives with pen in hand, assuming the paper copies even exist any more. The index is simply a finding aid and has no effect whatsoever on the original record or on Ancestry’s digital copy of it. The idea that changing the finding aid to a set of records changes the original record is pure nonsense since the index is not the record source, the record is.
When a “correction” is made it adds a new entry (record) to the index table which supplements the original entry. It does not replace it. In the example she uses, the original incorrect index record (Gustavus, Henly) would have remained and in addition there would now be an index record with the name entered correctly (Henly, Gustavus). In other words, there would now be two index records pointing to the same entry in the image of the census record. As you have rightly pointed out there is the “incorrect in image” choice in the "Why is this being added?” box along with a number of other choices and an option to provide a freehand explanation (sourced of course) for why you are making the change. In this case she could have added the information pointing to the other family entries in this collection and perhaps another source showing the family together. That way, when the next researcher comes along, they see find the individual, plus the information proving the relationship.
Any “corrections” made to indexes (which, as any experienced genealogist will tell you, can be notoriously full of errors) makes it easier for the next person looking for that record. My own opinion is that not adding a correction to an index, when the ability to do so is there, is either a symptom of selfishness or ignorance of the difference between an index and its corresponding record, or how the addition really affects the index. (In this case, I believe, judging from her dialog, that it is the latter). However, I find it really disappointing that an obviously experienced TH-camr genealogist with almost 100K subscribers would put our such a great tutorial and then ruins it with complete nonsense about indexes and records. I can only hope that she might re-record this video with the error corrected, and the index corrected. Otherwise I fear that there are probably more than few less experienced genealogists out there who will get the wrong idea that the index is somehow the record and should not be changed, which, of course, will make things harder for the rest of us who know better.
@@On3man That was really harsh. I don't appreciate your using my comment as a springboard to voice your criticism.
@@martast.john-anders6448 sorry you feel that way.
Love this! What a great find. Thanks for the refresher on extracting census data into Excel
My pleasure!
While you've addressed this topic in other videos I found this one most helpful. Taking your search beyond the name opened some ideas for me on finding one of my relatives who doesn't show up on the expected census. Thanks Connie!
Glad it was helpful!
... and thanks for supporting the channel!
Great vid, never thought of exporting to Excel (or manually exporting... ie copying). One thing, I also try searching with names reversed, Mistakes happen. I'm not sure I agree though about not fixing it. You're not destroying the original info, you are adding aliases, and there is actually a choice for incorrect in image. I do change these types of mistakes because there may be other researchers with less experience out there looking for the same record. What I do not add though, is nick names, or commonly used names, gritting my teeth here, like Nonno. One of my biggest pet peeves when I'm helping people is when they are looking for "Nonno something". Yes I'm very excited his your Nonno, but that helps exactly zero. Also, I only update the info when I'm certain of birth names. I might have even corrected the spelling of the last name as incorrect as well, or error in transcription if that was the case. I don't see a reason to keep bad meta data. Maybe you disagree? Would be interested in your reasoning. Regardless, great trick, too bad Ancestry doesn't make an extraction like this easier to do... one button. Thanks again!
Well Ancestry pays for those records and platform, so I kind of understand why they don't allow a lot of extraction. I'm kind of on the fence about whether that name should be edited in the index, but I hear you.
If you can see it on the screen, you can extract it. Excel VBA and Power Query AND Microsoft Power Automate Desktop can do magic.
@@GenealogyTV Hi, Nice Work! To me it takes quite a bit of patience, ideas, and organization, to point either Excitement or Anxiety takes over.
Companies may have stocked their Database with our info, (thus charge) but no reason why We couldn't search from Government site, [either]. A matter of Public Record:
re: "Pay" - I find it 'Odd' that Anyone should Have to Pay for Records OF the people. Our government has these records PAID for BY the people. _just a 'thought',_ - most likely correct. - Our governments, (and the BAR) have Usurped our Rights, Constitutions, and Laws, in effort to ConTrolled the people.^
Didn't mean to get all political 'karen'. lol The more *We Read and Learn, We Stand and Take back.*
^ We must Learn we have Unalienable Rights, and holding All political Power, and Use them.
*Nice to see Gus was with his Dad,* any chance William went to his? (name switch too?).2:37
*Thanks* for your info, will pass it on. Cheers!
Connie - Congratulations on breaking through a brick wall! Thank you for your thorough explanation and the way to be utilizing Excel to extract the information. Your explanation to use the newest version of Microsoft Excel was very important!
Great tips on census researching! I just went to my missing people (in 1870 also) and after 4 hours, the mystery for one is still a mystery... But, I figured out two people were moving out of state at the time!
Interesting. I'm wondering if your mystery person followed them (those who moved out of state).
Can't wait to try this for one of my problem ancestors. Thanks!
Good luck. Thanks for supporting the channel.
Great reminder! You've inspired me to try this with some church records that I am compiling. Thanks for the clear and straightforward instructions. Much appreciated. 👍
Thank you and thank you for supporting the channel.
Congratulations, Connie! I can imagine your joy in the moment.
That is some crazy sh**! A great example of how intensive, time-consuming, and in-depth the process can become when trying to dig through old records. Certainly also shows how dedication and persistence can be your best friends (and also why some people get a few extra wrinkles when trying to find "lost" records)!
That was really cool. Our elderly ancestor and his wife had moved to Texas and we lost track of one of his adult daughters. We found out through someone elses research that she was 4 pages ahead living with her husband. Her first name is unique so if I had done this I could have found her on my own. Thanks.
Great use of the Excel trick. I have used the extraction of census info into Excel several times since you first did a video on that. It even works for foreign censuses- like Norway censuses!
Oh good to know. Thanks for supporting the channel Richard.
This is why my dream career is time-traveling genealogist. I WANT to see the stories behind the data.
Me too!
😂❤
Great information.
Just a shout out to you. I am a FamilySearch consultant and I told a new patron to our centre all about you and your TH-cam channel. She had now started following you.
I love your videos.
Awesome! Thank you!
I have been doing genealogy here in the UK for over a decade now, and also thought I was competent in Excel, but have learnt several new things in your short video. Thanks! I'll watch them all now!
We all learn from each other.
WOW, what a wonderful method you have given us to use in our genealogy research!! Thank you so much for being willing to share your genealogy research knowledge.
As an IT professional of 40 years and a genealogist for 31, that was EXCELLENT work! Kudos!
Wow, thank you!
I found him quickly by searching for occupation apprentice (exact), born 1862 in NC, lived in Randolph Co, NC (exact). He popped right up as Henly Gustavus.
Awesome Connie. What a handy helpful tip and procedure. Thanks.
Glad it was helpful!
It would be helpful to the next person looking for him to have it corrected on the census. Ancestry lists all the alternate names that have been given. I amend names wrongly indexed like this just to make life easier for the next person. Those wrongly indexed people create a terrible quagmire. I would have used "apprentice" as key word and searched from that. There would likely be very few apprentices.
You beat me to it! I love the screen scraping and all, but once you know the magic word...just toss it in the Keyword field. THAT is an under appreciated trick. I love trawling censuses, directories, and phonebooks by street address in the keyword field.
Loved this 'doing genealogy' trick /'hack' :) Also really appreciated seeing Excel used as the excellent tool it can be - it is the one programme I have always avoided using or learning to use. I guess I have a love hate relationship with it - I do wish I understood how to use it better! I am defo going to try this method even if it is just to consolidate those Excel user tips (I didn't know how to freeze panes - this will help me at work too!).
Absolutely awesome! I could not find my own grandfather’s family for years! I finally gave up and unsubscribed from Ancestry because I was frustrated. Your work here has recharged me and I’m seriously considering going back at it. Evidently there are all kinds of tricks to use for these things! Also…another relative finally found my grampa. Just gave up too soon. Thank you!
Thanks for the compliments
Simply Brilliant! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this myself. I have done searches page by page before but never thought to grab the transcribed data and put it into Excel to manipulate. Word of caution sometimes I’ve found people have been missed in the transcription. But wow this is a time saver. Thank you!
Wow! Your navigation through the data extraction process is stellar! And you obviously have done this for some time. Thank you for sharing part of your journey and showing us how to drop history into Excel. This ancestress and her children definitely have a story waiting to be told!
LOL.. Yes they do.
GAME CHANGER! Connie, thanks so much for this. I do have a version of Excel that allows me to do this. I'm so excited to try it out - I've got a couple of missing kids too!
You're so welcome!
This is life changing! Thank you so much. I’ll use this now regularly. My brain works like yours and I had hit that same searching barrier so many times after hours of image viewing! It’s wonderful to have this new tool to break through. Many thanks!
Glad you liked it.
Really good use and demonstration of how to use the filter function. I practically made my career on knowing how to use filters when nobody in the organizations where I was knew about it. Even when I showed them how to do it, they came to me to find spurious information. So, yes! It is a secret out there in plain sight.
Thank you very much for showing how you searched for that. I’ve used your trick to download census records, but never thought to sort it by the age, gender, etc - or thought about maybe a transcription putting first name last :). Thanks for all your help.
I loved this video. Using MS Excel in this manner has so many applications in family history research, especially with establishing extended family units found in DNA results. My mind is bursting with ideas. Thank you for sharing.
Glad it was helpful!
A very useful tactic for finding lost people in a census. Thank you.
You're welcome
What a great way to find missing family members. So much easier than going through every listing in a census. I can't tell you how many times I've reviewed complete censuses trying to locate those elusive people!
Agreed. When I started out (before computers, that dates me) I had to scroll for hours through microfilm reading each line until my head was spinning... hoping I didn't skim over the one person I really needed. Thank God for indexers and computers! :) Research is so much faster now.
I have a pair of brothers, missing from 1916 Western Canada Census and am using your method right now to try to find them!
Good luck!
This is GREAT information!! I've been trying to locate my great grandmother using 1910 - 1950 census and haven't had any luck. Hopefully now, I can find her!!
I don't know how often I will use this tip, but this was one of the best tips I've seen. I went to Excel and practiced and I can definitely see how useful this would be. Thanks, Connie.
Glad it was helpful!
Wow! I just HAD to subscribe! I've always had an interest in this, but you're an amazing teacher too! A great lesson in Excel AND how to in Geneology tracking. Thank you! 😊
Wow, thank you!
2nd comment: I am so proud of myself-I did it! I got the how to download and followed the instructions and actually did a census record for a certain township! It wasn't that hard. You are an excellent instructor.
😊
Fantastic! Good for you!
I think that the census recorder for that district was consistently putting the hired hands/apprentices on the role First Name, Last Name. The average person transcribing the data reasonably going to assume that all of the names are Surname / Given name.
Excellent job teasing that one out of the grass and weeds.
Great information Connie!! Thank you for sharing.
Glad you enjoyed it.
OMG.....great find!!!! I have a similar story on my great-grandfather. The story goes when his mother remarried following the death of his father, the step-father did not like him. So, I have not been able to locate my great-grandfather. I need to use these tips ASAP!!! Thank you so much
I saw you do this before with the 10 pages before the census and 10 pages after, but this is totally awesome! Thank you for sharing! Can't wait too try this!
Awesome! Thank you!
Connie, another solid video. This method did not find my 1850 missing ancestor... BUT did allow me to find Transcription Errors that I have corrected. I do follow the Transcription Protocol (only trascribing as seen not assumed). Thanks again for this video.
OMG! Can't wait to try this. I too have relatives who were farmed out around 1870, in Illinois. Trying to discover why.
This video is a godsend. TYVM
TYTYTYTY. ❤️
OMG... I can't wait for you to try it too! LOL. You're welcome several times over.
Thank you! I have copied and pastred special into Excel before BUT I didn't know how to do more detailed filters that you explained. GOLD!
Glad it was helpful!
Wow! My head is still spinning. Great work.
Thank you! This is one of the best videos I’ve come across, and not just for genealogy. I’ve spent many hours reviewing original census images, trying to solve similar mysteries. I had no idea I could copy the transcription data and paste it into excel. (That noise is my palm hitting my forehead.)
LOL. You’re too funny. Enjoy the journey.
Wow! Just came across your channel and just subscribed. You are so compelling. In a few short minutes you've revived my interest in my genealogy search. Looking forward to a fun winter project with you. ❤
Awesome! Thank you!
DING DONG! How exciting. Your work paid off!
Wow. Very helpful and appreciated!! Thank you!!
What a treasure trove of helpful information. Thanks SO much!!
What a wonderful video-tutorial. I did not know you could do all of that with Census and excel. I was so happy and excited for you when you found him!
That was some serious digging!! I didn't realize we could extract census info, thanks for the great tip and thinking outside the box!
Excellent tip. Thank you.😊
Thank you for this.
I've just bookmarked your GoogleSheets video to attempt this one of these days. I have family missing in the 1920 census I'd like to find.
That was an awesome tip!! Thank you for always teaching us.
You are so welcome!
Thank you so much! I've been doing much the same approach copying & pasting transcribed tables into Excel, but I never knew the 'paste special' option, and I was stuck transposing enormous columns of data -- you've just saved me hours on future work!
Another Excel filter trick I use a lot: some of the surnames I search for were very often misspelled, so filtering isn't always as effective as doing a Find with * and ? wildcards. I highlight in yellow any hits the Find turns up, and then filter by color to see only a list of the possible matches.
Yes and I filter surnames in Excel with just partial names. For example Hen will get me all Henly’s and Henley’s. Plus you can select from the drop-down menu in the surname column multiple names to compare family names.
Thank you for all of your helpful hints with Genealogy Research.
Glad you like them!
That was awesome, I'll be using this!
Wow! Fascinating!
Awesome!! You are so helpful!!
I try.
Thank you for sharing! You are amazing at finding information.
You are so welcome!
This is great! Thank you for sharing!
My pleasure.
Best video on research that I've seen in a long time, thank you!
Wow, thanks!
You are amazingly helpful. Thank you for both verbal and visual direction. Onward you go!!
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for the compliments.
Super helpful. Thanks!
Awesome!! Thank you, I would never have known this was possible.
Glad I could help!
great lesson! great to hear your excitement!
Thanks Deborah and thanks for supporting the channel.
Score! Again!! You are amazing! Thanks for sharing, Connie.🥰
😊 thank you
Congratulations on your find! And thanks for the excel tip!
Glad it was helpful!
You are the best teacher! Bless your heart. You're my favorite genealogy TH-camr.
Ah thanks
Thank you! Never knew we could download that data. This will help SO much 😊
Happy to help!
Amazing lesson. Ive tried doing something similar with excell but didn't know eniugh about it to do it properly. Thankyou.
Great video. I'm glad you showed us the process of how you went through it. Following your other videos, I put some census records in Excel and it is miraculous how it can do these power searches. I have a bit of a brick wall with my grandmother and not finding her in a 1900 census. I tried this with her and couldn't find her, so the search goes on. However, it is a great technique.
Wow, that was cool! What great info! And I so appreciate your demo on copying and pasting into Excel!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you so much, Connie, I have learned a lot in just this one lesson. Thanks also for all the time and effort you put into bring us these videos, much appreciated.
You are so welcome! Thanks for supporting the channel.
Great job Connie! Awesome detective work!
Thank you!
Wonderful instructional video. Thanks so much!
Thanks
Wonderful! It is a challenge to do what we do, but we keep going. Working angles and names variations and even trying them backward and forward!
Good advice - never thought of hacking the transcripts.
My father had a cousin who "disappeared ". Turned out his unmarried mother gave him for adoption to a third cousin. The grandmas arranged it - being cousins they were much closer. They grew up in the same village.
I would love to know how the adoption process worked in the UK a 100 years ago and how formal and informal arrangements were and how documentations were impacted. I expect a lot of people would like to know about in the US too. It would give me a better chance of resolving adoption mysteries.
This was a great lesson, thank you!! I'm relatively new to genealogy, having inherited my mother's records. (Mom never had the internet to help her, though.) Do you help individuals with a specific problem? I have a couple of issues that I'm not sure how to go about resolving.
WOW!
Wonderful tip and great detective work on your part.
What fascinating family and the untold stories.
Thank you!
This information is absolutely vital. I can’t wait to do it myself. thank you 😁🙏
Glad it was helpful!
The census taker made the mistake of switching his given and family names in the two columns. So I would edit it and add the correct ordered name so others looking for the same person can find them. In the "reason" dropdown when adding it, one of the options is "Incorrect in image". It doesn't delete the original indexing. But it does add it as an alternate and will come up in a search in two ways now. Great video! I'm going to try this on the people I haven't been able to find. They also happen to be in the 1870 census.
Wow, amazing work.
Fantastic! What a great lesson! Thank you!
Glad you liked it!
That was really interesting, thank you
Wow, love your work. You are great.
Thank you! Cheers!
Brilliant! Thank you for sharing.
My pleasure!
Great use of the Excel spreadsheet, well done!
Glad it was helpful!
I ❤ your step-by-step to Excel!!! 💥🏆💥. Esp. that you show the steps more than once. Awesome tips! THANK YOU!
Glad it was helpful!
Genius!!! Thanks, Connie.
Thanks.
Wow that was amazing!
That helps alot. Thank you
Thank you for very helpful information on extraction. Hope it helps me in some of my brick walls
Best of luck!
You are just amazing...thanks so much for all the information you give. Vicki in Australia
Thanks Vicki in Australia.
Very impressive work and production quality.
Much appreciated!
Absolutely brilliant!
Why thank you!
Brilliant! I can’t wait to try this. Thank you so much 😊
Hope you enjoy it!
@@GenealogyTV It is so useful. Thank you again!