Ancestry, I hadn't noticed that before!

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I'm probably a mile behind everyone else, but it's taken me a coupe of years to notice this.....


If you put a full forename in the search box you will get results displayed including those transcribed with standard abbreviations, such as

type William, results include Wm and Wllm etc
type Thomas, results include Th and Thos etc

But if you put a full forename in the parent or spouse box you only get results for families where the parent or spouse are transcribed with the same spelling as they have been transcribed, as I discovered when I looked for Martha, fathers name Thomas and didn't get the result because Thomas was transcribed as Thos!

[Olde Crone Holden]

Yes, I did know that, Merry!

What I do in that case (oh, I have so many Thos and Wms, lol) - I would put Thomas in the first name box, tus bringing up all the variations of thomas, and put Martha in the spouse box, as Martha is less likely to be mangled than Thos or Wm!

Doesn't always work, but sometimes it does.

OC

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Yes, but Martha is Thomas' daughter, and there isn't a "child's name" box!! lol

[Mary from Italy]

I didn't know that, but if I can't find someone I often try Tho*, in case the abbreviation hasn't been picked up.

I also use wildcards a lot in place names; counties don't often get mistranscribed, but if you're looking for people in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, etc., it saves a lot of typing to search for Lei* or Not*, and the lesser-known town names are often mistranscribed.

[KiteRunner]

I knew that! I always put Tho* Wil* etc too.

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

I usually put Tho* and Wil* too, mainly because I'm a two-fingered typist!

However, I hadn't realised before that Wil* wouldn't give me Wm in the results, when put in the parent/spouse box, until today.