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Gen 106 - Family Search - Look for Records by Locality (County)

Hint: Family Search has many different ways to skin a cat. The following is but one way to use it. Play with it an see how you want to use it. The following instructions are fairly basic. The Family Search help screen is very helpful should you need further instructions.

Now this is a great part. Instead of looking up records under your ancestor, you can research records by location and find all records of a particular type for the location you choose. This is where you will spend a lot of time should you get serious about researching. First log on as instructed above. Click on Search on the Menu Bar, followed by Catalog. This will bring you to a page where you choose a location. You can choose any topic to search, but most often it will be a Place. Start typing the name of the locale (typically the county) you want in the search box. Very quickly you will see a list of choices, if that name is in more than one country or state. Make your selection. You will then see a list of types of records. You can drill down in each type until you find the precise record you want. Just like above when searching for records on an ancestor, you will a Camera, a Camera With a Key over it, or ,in this case, a Microfilm Reel. The microfilm reel is really bad news as you will not be able to access the record online.

Now, hopefully you are good with basic adding and subtracting. If not, bring a calculator or a pad of paper. Almost all of the images have image numbers that do not match up with the page numbers. There may be some indices in the front, followed by number pages, most often 2 physical pages to 1 image. So if you are looking for page 224 for example, divide it by 2 (=112) and add let’s say 30 pages for indices (=142). Go to page 142 and see what page number you landed on. Then guess again. After a few tries, you should be where you want to be. This takes a little practice, but once learned it is very easy. Hint: Jot down the Image Number in case you have to return later.

Hint: Printing. If you are home, the software does not like to print directly to your printer. Once you find a page you want, download the page, give it a name you want and save it where you want on your computer. Then open it and print it. Now, if you go to a Family History Center, bring a thumb drive with you and copy the record to the thumb drive. Then move it to your home printer and print it at home.

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