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When searching ancestors, free ancestry searches can play an important role. Knowing how to effectively use a free online ancestry search can help you to build a formidable family tree. But before you begin a search, it’s always a good idea to map it out first. When you know exactly the who, what and where that you’re searching, the results you get from free ancestry searches will be much more accurate – saving you time and money. In this article we’ll show you how to make the most out of free ancestry searches.
To conduct more efficient free ancestry searches, there are two things you should know before even beginning. Know your subject and know where to look for information regarding it/them
The search engines that provide free ancestry searches are quite effective in tracking down ancestry records, but the more information you have on your subject the better. For instance, if you’re doing a name search, say for James Brown, it would be good to know his middle name as well. Most search engines provide an option to enter middle names, and this greatly reduces the amount of irrelevant material returned in your results. If you have an address that your subject lived at, you will even further enhance your chances of retrieving relevant results.
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It is also important to understand what information the different indexes and databases will hold. There’s no sense conducting free ancestry searches for a birth date in Immigration Records or Census Reports. Though they will provide an age that you could use to deduce the approximate birth date, if you’re looking for an exact date, then you would want to look for Birth Certificates. This might seem obvious, but many people assume all records contain everything, and that’s just not true. Let’s take a quick look then, at the major types of Civil Records used for genealogical research and what’s contained in them.
Marriage certificates contain a wealth of valuable data, and containing the names of both people, they are often quite easy to locate using free ancestry searches. They will have loads of details which can help you to find ancestors. They contain:
As you’ll notice, actual birthdates are not included. This may vary from country to country, but generally speaking you won’t find the birth dates of people in Marriage Certificates.
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Considered to be the least valuable of civil registration papers by researchers, Death Certificates often contain inaccuracies. Ages entered in death certificates can be wrong by five years or more, as they were often rounded off to the nearest round number. They can provide:
Free ancestry searches for Death Certificates, can return a rough idea as to the person’s birth date though, which can help you to track down a Birth Certificate.
Remember when conducting free ancestry searches that the information contained in Civil Registration Records may vary from place to place, but Birth Certificates generally contain:
Keep in mind that birth dates were sometimes recorded at some point after the actual birth. This can vary from a couple of days to a few months, depending where the family lived, how far from the Civil Registration centre they were, and how easy or difficult it was for them to get there. Some countries fined registrants who were late, so occasionally they falsified the date of the event.
Keeping these points in mind when conducting free ancestry searches will help you to become a more proficient researcher. Knowing exactly where to look when searching ancestors can save you time and frustration when trying to find your family member. Understanding what these different documents contain will ensure that you maximise the potential of your free ancestry searches.