Quick Tip: Adding Ancestry Surname Search to Lookitup2

I talked last week about Greasemonkey and some tools you can use to make online genealogy research even easier. Today I want to show you how to add an Ancestry surname search capability to LookItUp.

To do the following, you must have Greasemonkey and the LookItUp2 add-on installed in your browser (instructions can be found in my prior post here). You must also be logged in to your Ancestry account.

To Add Ancestry Search to LookItUp2:

1. Highlight any word on any webpage (it doesn't matter what or where, as long as something is highlighted). While the word is highlighted, press Shift+3. The following screen will appear:




2. Click the "New Site" button as indicated by the red arrow above.

3. Fill in the information for the site name (e.g., "Ancestry")

4. Insert the following URL into the URL field*:

http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?rank=0&=&=&=&=&=&=&=&=&=1%2C+&=&=&=1%2C+&gsfn=&gsln=[words]&sx=&=&=&=1%2C+&=&=&=1%2C+&gs1co=2%2CUSA&gs1pl=1%2CAll+States&year=&yearend=&=&=&=&=&=1%2C+&=&=&sbo=0&sbor=&ufr=0&wp=4%3B_80000002%3B_80000003&srchb=r&prox=1&db=&ti=0&ti.si=0&gl=allgs&gss=ansmp&so=1

5. Add a letter shortcut for your site. If you have not deleted any sites, be aware that the letter "a" is defaulted to ask.com in LookItUp2. (You can remove any sites you don't think you will use by deleting them using the "Delete" button located to the far right of each line).

Your added fields should look something like this:



6. Click Save and the window will close.

7. Try your search out! (Remember, to use LookItUp, you simply highlight the word you want to search on, then press Shift+Control+Space). The Ancestry search will be on the last tab. Click on the tab or press the shortcut key you assigned to see your results. Here's an example using a surname from a Wikipedia article:



* Note that the URL provided above searches on the surname defaulted to the entire United States. To limit the search to one particular state, replace the phrase "2CAll+States" in the above URL with the name of your state, capitalized, using a "+" sign between words for states with two names. For example:

Replace 2CAll+States with 2CCalifornia to search in California

Replace 2CAll+States with 2CNorth+Carolina to search in North Carolina.

As you can imagine, you can set up multiple Ancestry search possibilities with different states in which you typically research.