Ancestry Top Tips and Hot Keys

by | Jul 24, 2020 | Ancestry, Elevenses with Lisa | 6 comments

Episode 17 Video and Show Notes

Live show air date: July 23, 2020
Join me for Elevenses with Lisa, the online video series where we take a break, visit and learn about genealogy and family history.

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The Elevenses with Lisa Archive

Get all the past episodes of Elevenses with Lisa and show notes here.

Top Tips for Searching at Ancestry®

Here’s an outline of everything we covered in this episode about Ancestry Hot Keys and Top Tips.  If you’re thinking of getting a subscription to Ancestry® learn more here. Thank you for using our links. We are financially compensated at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting this free show and show notes. 

Our Usual Starting Place

If you keep looking in the same places you’ll keep finding the same things.

Our usual starting places include:

  • Search > All Collections
  • The Hints on Our Family Tree (But Only 10% of Ancestry® Records Appear as Hints)

Add the Card Catalog to your list of usual starting places. You’ll find it in the menu under Search > Card Catalog.

Navigating to Ancestry's Card Catalog

Navigating to Ancestry’s Card Catalog

The Ancestry®  Card Catalog Includes Unique Treasures

You will find unique items such as old maps, county and regional histories, postcards, film reels and more.

In the card catalog you can filter in the left-hand column.

Card Catalog Filters

Ancestry® Card Catalog Filters

Historic Maps at Ancestry®

An example of one of these wonderful map collection is the U.S., Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1860-1918

  • Nearly 7 million records
  • Extracted from about 1,200 maps
  • Indexed by property owners’ names
  • Indicate township and county boundaries
  • Can include photos of county officers, landholders, and some buildings and homes.
  • You can filter this collection by state. Each collection will have different options for filtering and browsing.
Historic Maps at Ancestry.com

Look for Historic Maps at Ancestry.com

Top Tip: Use Multiple Approaches

Searching by title, keyword, singular and plural all bring up different results. Unless you are looking for something very specific, it’s usually most effective to try multiple approached. Doing so ensures you don’t miss anything. You can also search strictly by filtering. Example: Maps + USA + Virginia.

Search for genealogy records with filter on Ancestry

Searching by filters only.

Regional and County Histories at Ancestry®

You can find county and regional histories by filtering to Stories, Memories and Histories.

Example: U.S., County and Regional Histories and Atlases, 1804-1984

Regional and county histories at Ancestry.com

Regional and county histories at Ancestry.com

This is a browse-only collection of “more than 2,200 volumes of county and regional histories from California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Historic Postcards at Ancestry®

Narrow your search by first filtering down to Pictures.

Ancestry Top Tip: When search on a computer, user Control + F (Win) or Command + F (Mac) to access the Find on Page search box. Enter the word you are looking for to jump straight to it when reviewing a long list.

Control + F finds words on the ancestry page faster

Press Control + F (Win) on your keyboard to search for words on the page.

WWII Newsreels at Ancestry®

This collection contains all 267 issues of the ‘United News’ newsreels. The films average about 10 minutes each. Go to the Card Catalog and search for “United News” in the title field. 

Top Tip: Ancestry® Hot Keys / Shortcuts

Use these hot keys at Ancestry to navigate and search quickly. 
Genealogy Gems Premium Members: Click here to download the Hot Keys cheat sheet image as a PDF for printing. 

Ancestry hot keys and short cuts infographic

Ancestry hot keys and short cuts

Ancestry® Hot Keys / Shortcuts for Search:
r = Refine your search
n = New Search (cleared search fields)

Ancestry® Hot Keys / Shortcuts for Records with Filmstrip Navigation:
p = previous image
n = next image
f = toggles filmstrip off and on

Ancestry® Hot Keys / Shortcuts for Accessing the Record Side Panel:
d = Details of the record
r = Related Records
s = Source for that record
(These don’t toggle the side panel)
i = Reveals the Index for the record (toggles)

Ancestry® Hot Keys / Shortcuts for Navigating Search Results Lists:
Some results lists can be navigated with hot keys.
j = move forward through the list
k = moves backward through the list
Enter = opens the selected record in the list

Another Unique Collection at Ancestry®:

Historic Catalogs of Sears, Roebuck and Co., 1896-1993

Ancestry Top Tip - enter page number to navigate quickly.

Enter a page number to jump quickly to another area of a large collection such as the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalog.

Ancestry Top Tips Recap:

  • Use the Card Catalog
  • Understand Search  and account for variations
  • Explore Unique Collections
  • Use Hot Keys to search faster.
Ancestry Top Tips

Ancestry Top Tips Recap

Adobe Spark Video Follow-up

Watch episode 16 on how to create a family history video with Adobe Spark Video.

Gwynn asked about the app on Android. Adobe has said that the Android version is coming soon. So for now, the website version of Adobe Spark Video is the way to go. Start at my Bargains page here and click the Adobe Spark image. In the upper right corner of the landing page you can get a free trial and set up your account, or you can click the 20% off special which will prompt you to create your account and then will give you 20% off the subscription (limited time offer – see website for details.)

Prize Winners:

I received many creative and entertaining video entries and selected two to win a 1 year Genealogy Gems Premium membership. The membership includes over 5 videos classes with handouts, the exclusive Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast (180+ episodes to date) and ad-free downloadable show notes handouts for Elevenses with Lisa.

Winner #1: Suzan Siegel – The first video was a scrapbook of her granddaughter’s Coronavirus memories. The other was dedicated to her ancestor, Hazel Linnie Budd Siegel, called “The Early Years.”
Winner #2: Vicky Fravel – “An Ancestor A Day Keeps Boredom Away” 

Resources

Live Chat PDF– Click here to download the live Chat from episode 17 which includes my answers to your questions. 
Show Notes PDF – Genealogy Gems Premium Members click here to download the show notes PDF for this episode. (Log in required.) Become a Premium Member here. 
Ancestry Hot Keys Printable Cheat Card – Genealogy Gems Premium Members click here to download the PDF. (Log in required.)

The Next Episode of Elevenses with Lisa

Set your reminder here for episode 18.

In this episode you will sit in on my consultation with genealogy expert Kate Eakman as she helps me try and bust a brick wall. Will we do it? Tune in to find out and pick up on some great strategies for any genealogy research dilemma. A must watch also if you have Irish ancestry. Plus you’ll learn what you can do to get the most from a professional researcher.

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by | Apr 22, 2020 | Premium - All

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Google Searches for Genealogy Leads to an Opera’s Worth of Stories

by | Mar 25, 2017 | 01 What's New, Google, Listeners & Readers

Google searches for genealogy are a main focus of our Google Guru, Lisa Louise Cooke. Read this inspiring story of how one Genealogy Gems reader used Lisa’s Google search tips to find a trove of family stories worthy of an opera.

Google searches for genealogy

Opera house image courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons.

You never know when the amazing technology of the internet and Google will lead to a discovery that will open the doors on your family history. I recently received a letter from Genealogy Gems listener, Kristen. She shared the sad tale of her maternal grandmother’s history. Her grandmother had lost her mother before the age of two. Then, as an only child, her father abandoned her to be raised by a less-than-loving step mother. This young woman grew-up and had children of her own, but all she had in the way of a family history was the memory of her father’s name and a handful of unnamed photographs.

Merton E. Markert

Kristen went on to say, “She never really spoke of her sad childhood, save to say that the stepmother would tell her she had always been unwanted and that her mother was unloved and the marriage was forced.”

Among the handful of mystery photographs of her grandmother as a child, was a brief article from a newspaper. It was a lesson in manners titled Silence is Golden and it was written by Merton Markert, a student of the Modern Classics. A photo of a young woman was attached.

 

Using Clues for Google Searches for Genealogy

Here’s the rest of Kristen’s letter:

I took your advice and Googled Merton Markert Modern Classical Silence Golden. Up came the Lancaster High School Yearbook for 1905, featuring p. 41, the senior class portraits with their course study descriptions and a small personal quote for each. There was that exact photo of her, and the name Merton Markert, Modern Classical with the quote, “Life seems a jest of Fate’s contriving.”

Photo courtesy of Kristin Wat

The whole yearbook had been digitized by Mocavo, and it is the only yearbook for that high school in several years. My great-grandmother [Merton Markert], who had been buried and unspoken for a hundred years, had reached out to me. She wanted me to find her! Lisa, I cannot adequately describe the feelings I experienced at that moment of discovery. You understand how a moment like that feels, I’m sure. The chills, the tears…I felt like I was staring into her eyes, reaching through a century of silence, and finally able to acknowledge her sacrifice and legacy.

On the football team that year was my great-grandfather, and the whole book was ripe with clues that still hold nuanced significance.

From there, I was able to grow a tree on Ancestry.com and get the basics. But that does not tell you who the person is, the struggles, the character, the story. So taking your lead, and thinking like my brother the Sherriff Detective, I got creative. Using all kinds of searches and sniffing and turning over and under, I was able to uncover a veritable opera’s worth of stories within this one branch [of my family tree]. The cast of characters include: A Colonial founder, a secret bastard half-sister, a suicidal mother, a Klondike Gold Stampeder, alcoholics, a rejected Baptist Pastor, a homosexual affair-turned-murder victim,  a bonafide Monuments Man (buried at Arlington), and a chorus of war veterans. And cancer. Lots of it. In fact, breast cancer was the reason for Merton’s death in 1910. That kind of information is vital to my sisters and female cousins.

So thank you, my clever inspiration.

Ain’t opera grand?
 

Lisa’s Response to Kristen with Additional Ideas

Thanks for sharing your fascinating story. I completely understand the emotions you felt the moment she was looking back at you on the screen. Those moments are precious and meant to be savored!Using search techniques from my book The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox, Second Edition, I also discovered this same yearbook on the  robust and free Internet Archive website. Perhaps there is more there to be found. And I have an additional idea I thought you might like to try. It’s Ebay.

Ebay currently has a commencement program from 1902, old post cards of the school, and other yearbooks from Lancaster High School. Who knows what could be put up for auction in the future. You could sign up for a free Ebay account, run a search, and then click to Follow the search. You will then be alerted to future auctions that match your criteria. Happy hunting and thanks for being a Genealogy Gem!

Genealogy Gems Premium Members can listen to Premium episode 16 which goes in depth into my Tips for Finding Family History Related Items on eBay.

More on Google Searches for Genealogy

Google is an effective and easy-to-use genealogy tool, you just need to know a few basics. Watch my YouTube video on speaking Google’s language and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don’t miss any of our tech tips and more!

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