Born on St Patrick's Day: Happy 115th Mary

They say that its good luck to be Irish, and that the luckiest of all are those who are born on St Patrick's Day. No doubt this is what was said the day that my great grandmother was born. However, her life was not necessarily filled with the good luck that the superstition had predicted. As much as she had a hard life, her life was also an "ordinary" one of a young British immigrant to Canada. Despite that, the simple life she led in youth was filled with fun. She embrace the changing times, new found freedoms, and innovations. Its the heirlooms from that chapter of her life that fascinate me the most because they show aside to her that none of my relatives knew - a woman who was happy. So today, I am going to share the side of her that one of those heirlooms tells. I have a small black autograph book that was hers.  At almost 100 years old, the book binding has all but disintegrated yet the leather cover is in near pristine condition and the partially bound pages are al
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Why you ARENT Finding the Records you are Looking for


At one point or another every genealogist is bound to hit a brick wall. I previously wrote about 7 brick wall busting strategies. These strategies have helped me greatly, but what has helped me the most is understanding how to properly conduct a search. If you want to know if you really have hit a brick wall, its time to start looking at if your behaviours are the cause. 

1. Your filling in too much information

When we use a site such as Ancestry, FamilySearch, etc. we are met with these digital forms of boxes. As tempting as it is to fill in everything you know, dont do it. Stop and think about what you want to find. Ask yourself what the goal of the conducting the search is. Once you know what it is you want to find, employ the degrees of freedom approach. I previously wrote two posts (here and here) explaining how to use this method.  

2. Your search is too specific

When searching it is easy to want to enter the specific BMD information, however this often is too limiting. In turn, the algorithm may be skipping the results that you are looking for. I like to think of the location and dates that I am entering as the boundaries to an opening. The larger the boundary ranges, the larger the opening (more results). The tighter the range, the smaller the opening (less results). What we want to do when setting these ranges is find the ones that give us the optimal opening size. Hence, a manageable number of relevant results. 

The above diagram provides a visual of how the boundaries of the search parameters directly impacts the number of results. In the case of the diagram, the number of relevant results is proportionate to the shaded the area. The blue bow describes a broader search and thus has a larger area, while the red box describes a specific search and has a very small area.  

How do we find the optimal range? I like to start out specific and get broader as required. For example, one of my ancestors was born in Wood Green, Middlesex, England. I would start by entering this into the birth location and see how many results I get. If I dont find what I am looking for, I would get broader and choose to enter just 'Middlesex, England'. If that still wasnt broad enough I would just enter 'England'. 

When your looking at census records outside of the birth country, it is especially helpful to consider the broadest birth location. For example, I have Irish ancestors that immigrated to England following the famine. Although the census required all citizens born in England to provide the town they were born in, foreign born citizens were only required to provide the country. Hence, if I entered 'Castlebar, Mayo, Ireland' I might not get any results. By entering the broader birth location of 'Ireland' it would give me exactly what I am looking for.

The same applies for the year. For more recent events I generally use +/- 2 years, and for the older ones I use +/- 5 years. With subsequent searches I expand the range as required. 

3. Look in other places

It is very easy to get stuck in the rut of using one website for everything, however expanding your search increases your odds of finding those missing records. If you have used all of the major genealogy sites (Ancestry, FamilySearch, FMP, My Heritage) try conducting a Google search. I wrote a post here explaining how to Google your ancestry using search operators. When I conduct a search I am not always looking for information that is directly related to my ancestor, rather I'm looking for a database that may contain that information. 

As part of looking outside of the search results, it is important to remember that each of the major genealogy sites has collections of microfilm that are yet to be transcribed and indexed. These records do not show in search results, therefore the only way you will find them is by manually going through the scanned microfilm. When doing this, it is helpful if you know what you are looking for, when and where it happened. This doesnt have to be an exact date but having a smaller range will save you time and increase your chances of being successful. 


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