Here’s the next in my occasional series of bite-size Quick Tips. Click on the Quick Tips tag for my other Quick Tips. Because I tend to write longer posts, I wanted to provide a quick-to-read (and quick-to-write) post every now and then on a small topic that pops into my head. This one is a good lesson on being persistent.
Check multiple sites before giving up
It can be frustrating when you can’t find a document, especially when you’re pretty darn sure it exists. Even when you pull out all the stops and search every way you can think of at an online site, you can come up short. But don’t give up yet! Instead, take a look at another online database. Your document may have been indexed differently by that other database and could show up in your search. (This tip applies to in-person research as well!)
Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash
Yes! Even for a fairly routine census search, I’ve found that Ancestry’s index missed (or badly mis-spelled) a particular person in a given year, while the FamilySearch index succeeded in finding her. And vice versa. I believe that HeritageQuest uses the same index as Ancestry these days, for periods when I don’t have a paid Ancestry subscription. The rule also applies to more complicated searches.
Lately I have been using newspapers to find facts that I couldn’t find elsewhere, like which cemetery “holds” a relative, possibly without a gravestone, in cases when living people don’t recall or when death records don’t say or don’t exist.
Marian, thanks for the great reminder about how newspaper research can provide some great clues!