Ancestry help - is it me?

[Pipemma]

I've been merrily using a search box on Ancestry that had first name, surname, country, county and a date range, along with a drop-down box for exact or soundex. Now suddenly the search box has reverted to first name, surname, birth date country, county, death date, country, county. The former was fairly accurate, never bringing up more than a couple of hundred hits on a soundex search - this other one is bringing up thousands of hits even with the exact names box checked. What have I done and how do I get back to the other search box?

[guybrush]

Sounds like it might be the new search experience inflicting itself on you. Is there an orange bar at the top saying revert to old search experience? if so click it and see what happens.

[Pipemma]

No, the bar at the top still says try our new search. The box I can now see is in fact the one I originally used when I first got my sub, but Merry, I think it was, pointed me to using exact matches and my favoured box appeared and I've been using it ever since. Trouble is I don't know what I did to acquire it or to lose it again. I'm sure it's just a click...

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Is there a tick box for exact matches only just above the first name box?

[Pipemma]

Is there a tick box for exact matches only just above the first name box?

Yes, and it's checked

[Darksecretz]

Yes, and it's checked

try unchecking it

I usually find that having the exact search on doesnt work that well for me,

[KiteRunner]

I would leave exact match ticked if I were you, but could it be that you have the "Advanced Search"? Yikes, there used to be a thing you could click on to hide the advanced search fields, but I can't see it now. And I only clicked on Advanced Search to see if it looked like what you were describing!

[KiteRunner]

I've managed to get back to the non-advanced search by clicking "back" on my browser but if you can't do it that way I'm not sure how you get to it...

[rkic]

You seem to have to click on search in the toolbar to switch back to non-advanced

[Pipemma]

No, definitely not the advanced search, too few fields. And now it looks like they've switched off the old search with the turn of the year - or is that me, too?

[rkic]

I've just got into the old search (11.15)

[Pipemma]

Just so you know what I'm actually on about, I was lucky enough still to have the old search screen open on the laptop so I've taken screenshots of the two.

This is the screen I've found most useful, returning a couple of hundred hits at most with soundex:



And this is all I can get now, which is returning thousands upon thousands of hits for every search, making it virtually unusable:



My home screen on Ancestry now also no longer has an option to revert to old search or to try new search :(

I really want to get back to the first screen if I can...

[Elaine ..Spain]

I think the second image you show is the new search option.

When you are logged on to Ancestry there are tabs towards the top of page
Home / Family Tree / Search / Print & Share etc.
Click on the Search tab and you should see an option at the top to revert back to the old search method

[Pipemma]

I think the second image you show is the new search option.

When you are logged on to Ancestry there are tabs towards the top of page
Home / Family Tree / Search / Print & Share etc.
Click on the Search tab and you should see an option at the top to revert back to the old search method

Did that, this is what I get, which is a) what originally came up when I first subscribed and b) still not the screen I want :(

[Pipemma]

Oh weird - now when I click on Exact matches on the old search, I get to the screen I want. I wonder why it was refusing to do it before?

[Elaine ..Spain]

On your second image, tick the box that says exact matches only and it changes the screen slightly.
Is that the one you want?

[Elaine ..Spain]

Snap!

[Pipemma]

Thanks for the help - I was being a bit of a div but I think the NYE Internet traffic probably didn't help either