RE: Do Search Engines Provide What You Request?

I was reading Randy Seaver's blog:

http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/07/do-search-engines-provide-what-you.html

and thought I would give it a try. I was wondering if I would get the same results or different results, based on how I search on Ancestry.com. This is from the Ancestry.com website and not from within Family Tree Maker.

Here is my Input: [ my default Search settings ]

I entered Sampson Seaver, Birth year of 1830, and selected New York, USA when I typed New Y

Then clicked on Search.

Since Randy was looking for 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880 U.S. census records I selected the Census and Voting Lists

I got them all in ONE search:

I think the importance of my results are the Sliders. I use them ALL OF THE TIME. I am usually pretty successful with my search results. I do this type of search while teaching a class.

Here is the slider settings that I see as my defaults on this generic type of search.

The first name was fairly broad, which would pick of variations on Sampson. The Born date and location were broad.

Now, if I were to get too many results, I would move the Birth date and place tighter.

Now, I don't know if the census records were Randy's Sampson, but the information in the 1850, 1860, and 1870 were consistent, would have to know if the 1880 was Randy's person.

Thanks Randy for the challenge.

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Copyright © 2014 by H R Worthington