Have you ever searched Ancestry® for an ancestor you know should be there… only to come up empty?
The problem may not be your ancestor—it may be how you’re searching.
In this video, I’ll walk you through 10 practical search strategies I use when Ancestry isn’t finding the records I know should exist. These are the same evidence-based techniques I use in my own professional genealogy research to uncover hidden records, work around indexing errors, and find ancestors who seem to have disappeared.
In this video you’ll learn how to:
• Search with purpose instead of searching broadly
• Use the “less is more” approach to improve search results
• Take advantage of the Card Catalog like professional genealogists
• Search the FAN Club (Friends, Associates, and Neighbors)
• Find records despite spelling and indexing errors
• Search using only first or last names when needed
• Understand record collections before concluding a record doesn’t exist
• Use AI tools to help transcribe and translate historical records
• Preserve records you find outside of Ancestry
• Master my favorite technique—the Side Panel Trick—to browse records page by page when search fails
Sometimes the fastest way to break through a brick wall is to stop relying on search and start thinking like the records were created.
If this video helps you, please subscribe for more evidence-based genealogy education to help you go further, faster, and factually with your family history research.
? Website: https://GenealogyTV.org
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? Learn more in the Genealogy TV Academy: https://GenealogyTV.org
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This GTV 2 channel lesson is now available on the Academy dashboard. Be sure you’re logged into your account and use this link to watch now, ad-free. https://genealogytv.org/courses/gtv2-youtube-videos-2026/lessons/genealogy-organization-done-right-find-anything-in-seconds/
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AncestryDNA has updated how it predicts certain close-family relationships. Instead of relying primarily on the total number of centimorgans you share with one DNA match, Ancestry can now examine patterns...
