On the FamilySearch Record Search page, are you only
searching for a person? There are two other ways that you
could be searching for information about your
ancestors and we're going to talk about that today. Welcome
to Family History Fanatics. Be sure to check the link in the
description to the free resource guides that we have to
help you climb your family tree. So, how are you going to
access those two new search forms? Let's go to FamilySearch
website. We go to search records and here we're at
record page. You'll notice there are three main portals to
get you into the record collections and actually they
go to different locations. So the first place that I'm going
to walk you through is how to search for records based on the
place where your ancestor lived. Now one of the things
you need to know it needs to be a country, a province, or a
state. It can't be a county levels. If I try to type in
Lubbock County, Texas, notice that drop down bar goes away.
So, instead, I have to start at the higher level, the state or
the province. So, click on Texas and now, you're going to
see a number of different options. Depending on the
location and the resources that FamilySearch has for you will
depend on what you see. Let's start not over here on the
index records but let's start at the learning options. There
are learning courses so you can learn about how to research in
Northeastern Mexico and Texas, Northern New Spain locating
records and other videos that are about Texas in the Learning
Center. Now, if you've watched our video about how to use the
FamilySearch Wiki, then, you already know that this section
over here going to the FamilySearch Wiki for Texas is
super helpful. You can click on that wiki page. It will take
you to tips on how to do genealogy research in Texas and
then if you want to go down to a location such as Lubbock,
click on Lubbock and then I can go and learn about Lubrick
Genealogy. So, this portal may be limited to Just Texas but
there is a way to go to the local areas and as a reminder,
check out this video. The link will be in the description or
in the pop-up card that comes here in just a minute. I
want to show you some other options that you're going to
see in some other locations. So, if I check Balt Swan of
Africa, it's just going to have the Wiki. When I try to do in
Germany. It didn't work so I need to do Germany and notice I
have the learning courses, the Germany civil registration,
Germany research with the Wiki. There's the Wiki but there's
also current indexing projects. Let's say you want more records
in Saxony. Well, how about you kind of contribute to indexing
those records and then they become searchable. That's
kind of neat that there's these location portal pages that tell
you how to learn something what types of records are available
and then invite you to contribute to the research
project. So, be sure to check that out. Now, over here on the
right, you're going to see the index for historical records
and when you do a search, let's say you do an search for
Erasmus Smith and he was actually known as Death Smith
in Alamo history. You can then go to records and notice they
have a filter for United States and location and then I'll be
able to find different records and go through at for him. When
you keep scrolling down, you're going to see other collections.
Maybe you want to filter by collection. So, maybe you just
want Texas birth certificates with the name of Erasmus Smith.
I could type that back up there and then click search and then
it will be specific to just that collection. Now, make sure
you don't overlook the historical images collections
that are on FamilySearch and notice say the art image only.
If you can't find your ancestors through the search
form up here even though it's filtered to Texas, then, come
down and look the image only record collections and you'll
find ones that you have to scroll through. The next one is if
want you to investigate is if you have found videos here on
Family History Fanatics such as tax records, probate records,
land records, census records. If you know of a specific type
of record that you want to look for, then you want to come and
actually sort and filter the collections by type and title.
Now, when do a search by collection, you can put in a
specific title if you know what it is or you can type something
like Tax Record. So, here I typed in tax records and you
can see there's not a lot of tax records online. There's
some for Tama County, Iowa, Alcahaney, Maryland, Boston,
Massachusetts, the state of Ohio, and then a specific
county in Ohio. There aren't any other ones that are
available to be so and that's okay but let's try one that I
know a lot of locations have and that is probate records
notice there's probate records in Alabama Arkansas Australia
England Florida Germany Hawaii and on and on and on so what if
you can't really see because that there's too much
information you can't see your location then what you should
do is you should type in let's say New Jersey so that filters
in to New Jersey, the state of New Jersey and then it's also a
collection that's specific to Middlesex County. So, go ahead
if there are too many results in the specific type of
collection, add a state. It's better to do a state rather
than a county because as you can see, there's just only one
of these collections, these searchable collections that are
under that location. If you don't find your collection
there and you're thinking, well, I really thought it was
online then do a play search or come up to search the either
the catalog or the wiki and that would be a better option
for you. So, take advantage of these two additional ways to
search for your ancestor from the FamilySearch Record Search
page. You'll be able to hone in on specific details about your
kin. You will also be able to learn a few techniques along
the way as well as give back to a free platform that gives us
so much. For more tips and on how to use FamilySearch, be
sure to check the playlist at the top and if you're ready for
our latest video, be sure to check the one on the bottom.
Okay. Now, that's all done. Let's see if they actually
work. We'll we'll see.