Earlier today, I read in Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings about FamilySearch's new Simple Search. He demonstrated it and it looked intriguing.
I'm now in about my third hour of reading, downloading, sourcing, and getting all sorts of excited about the ton of records this simple search gave me with plain-text brief inquiries. Asking simply for Oscar Merry Packard, my great-grandfather, in Chautauqua County, New York, gave me his baptism record and other church records, and the same on his sister, some cousins, his parents, aunts and uncles. Then I asked for information on Joseph Hoyt III in the same location, and found my 3rd great-grandfather and his sons and a daughter, and this led to wills, marriage records, more church records, land records and more. I found out that only three of the children of Joseph Hoyt IV lived long enough to be remembered in his will. I have a lot of transcribing and analysis to do.
There is at least three more hours of work for me to do just examining and recording and sourcing more records. I have at least thirty tabs at the top of Firefox's search bar, just waiting for me to look at them and determine where they fit in my family lines -- or if they do at all. I've already discarded several that do not relate to my line at all. And now I have a ton of new information to make that winnowing process be even more accurate.
The search really is simple. There's no form to fill out. There is simply a space into which you just ask a simple question. You may make it as vague or specific as you want. Take a look at Randy's explanation here. I told Randy in a comment on his blog that this is going to keep me off the streets and out of the pool halls for months!
No comments:
Post a Comment