"Old search" facility on Ancestry

[Vivienne]

It would be nice if we could set a default search and have an option to switch.

It took me ages to get into the Old Search yesterday & loads of the results I find in Old Search are just not there in the New Search.
I think those of us who will be meeting the staff at WDYTYA or other fairs should make the point to them in the strongest possible terms. Surely if they get enough face to face complaints they must take notice.

[Ann from Sussex]

It took me ages to get into the Old Search yesterday & loads of the results I find in Old Search are just not there in the New Search.
I think those of us who will be meeting the staff at WDYTYA or other fairs should make the point to them in the strongest possible terms. Surely if they get enough face to face complaints they must take notice.

We were discussing Ancestry at my genealogy group last week and so many people are very disallusioned with it because of difficulties in using the site due to the hit and miss search facility. Several have given up on it altogether - and these aren't newbies but very experienced users. It used to be so much better than it is now when the search boxes related directly to what you were searching in; things like the info you put in when searching in a UK census matched the way it is presented on the census return and when you could set each individual box to exact or soundex. The rot seemed to set in when they went over to a universal search format instead of the UK specific one.

Ann

[Guest]

do hope someone makes them see sense they have made a serious mistake changing things Nell has a good point a default choice ???

[Anne in Carlisle]

I still get the old type search all the time. Is it because I always specify a particular collection before searching? For example I go to 1861 census and then pick England census (or Wales etc) and get the old forms with lots of boxes to fill or leave blank as you wish. If the 'new search' type page come up it goes away when I go down to a specific collection.

Anne

[Elaine ..Spain]

I always get the old search as well probably because I have saved all the usual collections that I use as bookmarks in Firefox - so if for example if I want to look up something in the BMD index, I don't have to open Ancestry first then look for the right collection - I just click on BMD index in my bookmarks and it goes straight to the page I want. As all bookmarks have been set up using the old search facility it automatically uses that whenever it opens any page/database collection.

[margaretmarch]

I think the secret here is never to use the home page.
I have the search page saved to favourites and so every time I go to ancestry I go immediately to that page which is set for the old search. If I get lost on my travels and end up with the new search I simply click 'search' at the top, select 'all records' and I get the old search page.
Hope that's helpful.
Margaret

[Ann from Sussex]

I still get the old type search all the time. Is it because I always specify a particular collection before searching? For example I go to 1861 census and then pick England census (or Wales etc) and get the old forms with lots of boxes to fill or leave blank as you wish. If the 'new search' type page come up it goes away when I go down to a specific collection.

Anne

I always get the old search as well probably because I have saved all the usual collections that I use as bookmarks in Firefox - so if for example if I want to look up something in the BMD index, I don't have to open Ancestry first then look for the right collection - I just click on BMD index in my bookmarks and it goes straight to the page I want. As all bookmarks have been set up using the old search facility it automatically uses that whenever it opens any page/database collection.

The trouble I have with the old search is that you get pages and pages of results, sometimes with no indication of how many hits there are; at least the new search does tell you there are 110,000 or whatever! And so often the "exact" search doesn't work for me. It will say there are no results when I know jolly well there are because I've just seen some of them in the new search. The problem is caused, I think, by not being able to apply "exact" to each element of the search - it's all or nothing. You may know your man's name was Joe Bloggs born in Hackney but you don't know how he named his birthplace to the enumerator (this applies especially to Londoners who often quoted the parish of their birth and not the district - or vice versa). Get it wrong and the exact search won't find him and if yopu don't know the parish you're sunk. You used to be able to put in all sorts of variations in the new search when they first brought it out but that was suddenly withdrawn and now you have to put up with whatever Ancestry thinks fits....and so often, it doesn't. It's a pain.

Ann

[Elaine ..Spain]

I look at it from a different point of view. I always keep the exact match box ticked. If I ask Ancestry for a Jo Bloggs born in 1881 +/- 5 years, then that is what I want to see. I'm not interested in Fred Smith born 10 years later (a bit of an exaggeration .. but hopefully you know what I mean!).

I find the use of the keyword box a great asset and very often put the place of birth in there - which will pick them up if the place of birth or residence matches.

I rarely do a blanket search, e.g. SEARCH / SEARCH ALL RECORDS. If I am looking for census info then I will search the census collection and nothing else; if I need BMDs then I will go directly to that database; if I need military then I will go directly to that section ... etc.

[Guest]

I saved the old search method from the link you gave last week for census records where you could put the reference number , but its disappeared again and I have noticed when I try and do a search it says ancestry.co.uk/search/default on the URL ????
How can I set it to always be on the old search with the census reference option ???