Start with a broad search
Begin by searching for an ancestor by name without including any places or dates. If you get too many results,
you can always add more information and search again.
Try various name spellings
Most names can be spelled in a variety of ways. If you can't find the person you're looking for, try some variant
name spellings. On the Advanced Search Page you'll find an option to search with "Exact" spelling or "Soundex".
If you select Soundex, the Ancestry Library Edition will search for variants of the name you are searching for.
Wildcard searching
If you aren't sure how to spell a name, you can try using wildcard characters in your search. Wildcards are
special symbols (e.g. the asterisk "*" and the question mark "?") which are used in searching to represent some
number of unknown letters in a word.
US and UK Census Images and Indexes
Census schedules are among the most useful resources available to family historians. Not only do they include
almost entire populations, but they are rich with personal detail. The Ancestry Library Edition contains census
images and indexes for the United States and the United Kingdom.
Social Security Death Index (SSDI)
The SSDI can be particularly helpful if you are looking for a comparatively recent ancestor. The index includes
deceased persons who received Social Security benefits and whose deaths were reported to the Social Security
Administration.
Ancestry World Tree
Ancestry World Tree contains more than 200 million names from family trees submitted by Ancestry users.
Since these records were organized in the form of family trees you get a quick and easy view for one generation to
the next. Ancestry World Tree contains assertions made by other researchers, so you'll probably want to look for
primary sources (e.g. census records, birth, marriage or death records) to support the assertions you find.
You can search Ancestry World Tree by going to the advanced search page and then looking in the Trees and
Community section.
