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.

More on Ancestry's Search (dys)Function

In case you were wondering how feeble Ancestry's search function can be, I decided to do a test today on an individual I was researching:

Ancestry's search of this particular book, History of Dakota Territory, encompasses all five volumes. I tried to search for my individual, A. S. Jones:



Here's the result I got:



Here's the search results I got performing the same search, solely on Volume II of the book, in Google Books (the photo shows you the first of fifteen accurate search results):



Here is the first search result instance, shown above from Google Books, as found in the volume on Ancestry (it's the last name on the right-hand side, second line from the bottom):



So what's going on here?

The Ancestry Newspaper Rollout: Why I Say "Meh"

As you've undoubtedly heard, ancestry.com amped up their inventory of newspapers today.

I use the newspaper collection somewhat, and am glad to see that they have expanded their title base, but without a modified, clarified... or dare I say improved search function, this new collection will be just as useless as the last one.

When it comes to the search functions for their newspaper collection, why can't Ancestry seem to get exact phrase searches right? It's hardly impossible... Newspaperarchive.com used to have the same problem, but recently released a beta search that is lightyears better than what they had previously, and actually allows you to search for exact phrases. All of the NewsBank products have great exact-term searching. The best I've seen is the 19th Century Newspapers database put out by Gale, which serves up great results that match your search query, or it gives you nothing at all.

Call me selfish, but this is how I expect databases to act.

What I can't stand is a database that forces you to wade through thousands of false hits because it can't seem to consider a first and surname as a singular, searchable unit. Is this too much to ask from a genealogy website?

Until Ancestry can get their act together and get a proper search function up for their newspaper collection, these sorts of trumpeted rollouts will fall short. When they announced the impending paper rollout on May 5th of this year, the blog had the gumption to mention that "newspapers have not been highly used on Ancestry to date", as if they were perplexed by why that could be. The comments backed me up and made me realize I am not alone in my frustration with searching through the collection.

Am I just another frustrated "Jones" surname researcher? Perhaps. But I also love much of what Ancestry does across their site, and I appreciate that they are continually expanding the role of the internet in everyone's genealogy research. And as someone who really believes in the value of newspapers for genealogical research, I wish they would show those newspapers, and this new, vast newspaper collection, the respect that it so richly deserves.