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Search Tips for Ranked Search Method Welcome to the Ancestry search help area. Ancestry supports two powerful search methods: exact searching and ranked searching. The tips we’ve included below will help you use the ranked search method to search our website with greater ease and efficiency. You can switch from a ranked search to an exact search by clicking on the “Exact Search” tab. If you would like to learn more about exact searching, click here. What is ranked search? How does ranked search work? Get the most out of ranked search Narrowing your search to a specific category or database Wildcard searching Subscription and free databases What is ranked search? Ranked search helps you find your ancestors quickly and easily because it brings up the best possible matches first in your list of search results. Performing a ranked search also gives you the option of specifying a date and place of birth and/or a date and place of death in your search criteria. And, to make it even easier for you to decide where to look first, the search results page reveals more information about your matches right away. You can now see the most relevant matches from all Ancestry databases on the initial search results page, complete with basic information about birth, marriage, and death events. How does ranked search work? Ranked search lists matches in descending order of relevance, with the most relevant matches appearing at the top. Relevance is determined by comparing your search criteria with the information found on a genealogical record. The closer the match, the more relevant that record is to your search. Ranked search automatically returns alternate spellings and abbreviations for your ancestor’s name(s). For example, a search for “Bill Smith” might return “William Smith,” “Wm Smith,” “Bill Smyth” or “B. Smith.” An exact name match is the closest match, and therefore the most relevant, followed by common variants, misspellings, and nicknames. Get the most out of ranked search To get the most out of ranked search, type in as much information as possible. The more search criteria the search engine has to match against, the more likely it is to pull the most appropriate records up to the top of your results list. Not sure about an exact date? Take an educated guess. As long as you’re within a few years, you’ll get much better results than if you leave a date field blank. Try these general suggestions to improve your results:
After completing your initial search, you might want to narrow your search results to those found only in a particular category or database. Categories range from “Census” to “Trees & Communities” and house specific databases such as the “1930 US Federal Census.” Simply click on the desired category or database listed above your search results. This will take you to a new search results page that shows you results found only in the chosen category. Once you drill down to an individual database, a new search box may appear at the bottom of the search results page. This will allow you to search exclusively within that database thereby narrowing the scope of your search. Just keep in mind that the search field options may vary depending on the category or database selected. Wildcard searching Wildcards are special symbols (the asterisk "*" and the question mark "?"), which are used in place of numbers or unknown letters in search queries. The ranked search method does not currently support the use of wildcards. Subscription and free databases You do not need a subscription to complete a global search. Any search at Ancestry will produce a list of relevant results for your query. However, some of these results are housed in databases requiring a subscription. These results are designated by a special “buy” button which, if clicked, will allow you to subscribe in order to gain access to the desired record. To access all of the data located at Ancestry, subscribe now. |