I am working on my family tree, and came across some "Alert notes" in big red banner across the top of some of my relatives. I've only seen it on a few, but it says "Important research has been done on this person. Please read these alert notes before making changes."

Clicking on the alert and checking the notes, someone simply added the findagrave for my relative, and has marked it as "important research" being completed. That's literally it, no other information just a link to their findagrave.

Am I wrong in wanting to change this note to being not important or even delete it all together? This particular person seems to have gone through findagrave for this cemetery, and added a note to everyone on familysearch they could find that's buried there. They are not related to my family at all.

These types of notes don't seem like they should be flagged as important, but I don't know enough about famlysearch to know if it's okay to remove them.

Thanks for the help.

I recently created a post on how to supercharge search results by making use of wildcards. This is a second edition of that post on how to effectively search in FamilySearch by using their unique search parameter functions.

First, I’ll start with how to narrow down search results within FamilySearch’s digital library. I’m sure most are aware of this, but for those who are not, when searching the digital library for a specific name, make sure you use quotation marks, or inverted commas in UK English, around the name. If I am looking for the name Robert Jeffrey, I’d type “Robert Jeffrey” in the dialog box in the digital library on FamilySearch. Now, let’s say 4300 results came back for “Robert Jeffrey”. Does this mean I have to browse through 4300 books? It does not. It just means that I need to fine tune my search. Let’s say I already know that Robert Jeffrey lived in Newport, Rhode Island. I’d type +”Robert Jeffrey” +Newport in the dialog box. Using the + (plus) symbol before a search parameter tells the search engine that I want results for the name “Robert Jeffrey” that also include the word Newport. This technique will definitely narrow down the 4300 results. I’ve had much success with this technique. The + (plus) symbol works the same way as the AND Boolean operator in using traditional internet search engines. Ensure that you include a + before both parameters for this to work.

Now I’ll delve into full text search techniques. This piggybacks off of my post on how to use wildcards in your searches. In using the full text search feature, don’t limit yourself to just putting names in quotation marks. “Robert Jeffrey” as a search parameter is just fine, but it definitely shouldn’t be the only method of searching for Robert Jeffrey in historical documents. Unfortunately, using quotation marks and wildcards together isn’t possible. I can’t search for “Rob(asterisk) Jef(asterisk)”. This is outside of the FS search engine’s capabilities. I could, however, search for +Rob(asterisk) +Jef(asterisk). I have seen the name Jeffrey also in its variants as Jeffries, Jefree, Jefferay, and more. Also be aware of the old shorthand for spelling out common names. Robert become Robt, James becomes Jas, Thomas becomes Thos, William becomes Wm etc. Searching for +Rob(asterisk) +Jef(asterisk) will return results for documents that have both search parameters within the same document that cover both the shorthand and full spelling of Robert and all of the variants I’ve seen of Jeffrey.

Using wildcards in the full text search feature is an essential skill as the AI program that reads and transcribes these documents is far from perfect. It’s still in beta mode and makes mistakes often.

Additionally, if you want to fine tune searches for +Rob(asterisk) +Jef(asterisk) the following tip should be helpful. You can use the - (minus) symbol to exclude parameters from a search. Let’s say the above search parameters also returns dozens of irrelevant pages with the name Jefferson. Adding a -Jefferson to the parameters will eliminate the irrelevant results.

Please ask any questions or add your two cents to this post. It is intended to be a free resource to help fellow researchers, both novice and seasoned. As I wrote in my post on how to supercharge search results with the use of wildcards, I may come back to this post and edit it to ensure that it as useful a resource as possible. Happy hunting!

Edit: The FamilySearch engine does not support full Boolean logic or regex-style wildcarding.

The + and - search features are specific to FamilySearch.

I made this post a month ago looking for help finding long lost family in China. I have since received my grandfather's military records, and as I thought, most of them were destroyed in the 1973 fire. There is no record of where he served and I'm not sure where to go from here. I dream of finding my long lost relatives in China, but I'm at a loss now.

According to the records, grandpa was an airplane mechanic in the 23rd Fighter Group. He had reenlisted ("transferred") with the Army Air Corps out of March Field in July 1941 and by early 1942 was already in China. He would go on to earn a "Distinguished Unit Badge" as a S/Sgt.

My grandpa always told the story that he was a mechanic in Chenault's Flying Tigers, but given timeline, that seems to be not true. Anyway, I don't know where to go from here, but I'll be grateful for any guidance. Or if anyone has a subscription and wouldn't mind double checking some things, I'd be grateful. Thanks!

Hey I've been looking into my family tree . My mother's family is from Lares Puerto Rico . I found my 5th great Grandmother who lived to be well over 100 and her race has the letter T . Is this for Taino ? I've been researching on ancestry for 2 years now and have never seen this . They usually have a B for Blanco (white) or C for Color .

Hi!, I'm looking for my 3x great grandfather ancestors, his name is Manuel de Almeida , he was born in Ourém, Santarém, Portugal, he married with Josefa de Barros , his know kids were Maria Henriques(1858- ) and António de Almeida (1860-1906) who's my 2x great grandfather.

I would like to know if someone could find any documents talking about his birth record , when he died , when and where did he marry and most importantly his parents and grandparents names , if possible know where and when did they born.

Hey everybody! I was hoping to get some help figuring out what year this photograph was taken? I obviously know where it was taken, but want to know when. My guesstimate is sometime between 1900-1920. The photo is of Enid, OK looking down Grand Avenue from the courthouse. Any help is beyond appreciated. https://imgur.com/a/moTez8C

my mom died when i was four im adopted so i dont have any blood family members to talk to i have looked all over the web im 12 right now so how can i find out how my mom died its not the web and i get it it cant be public cause of privacy law but i wish i could just find

Hello! Sorry in advance for all the Felipes and all the confusion...

My 3rd great grandfather was named Felipe Novoa, born 25 May 1834. In his baptism record it states that he was the illegitimate child a married man, Felipe Novoa, and a single woman, Remigia Guerrero. He was baptized (and presumably born in) Matanza, Santander, Colombia. I found a few matches for my 3rd great grandfather's father:

1. Felipe Eleuterio Novoa González, born 25 May 1804 (the same date as my 3rd great grandfather) in Bucaramanga. He married María Francisca Megía on 27 November 1822 and had at least six children. The first five children (born 1825-1832) were born in Rionegro. The last child (born 1834, a few weeks before my 3rd great grandfather) was born in Matanza. Francisca died between May 1834 and November 1838. He then went back to Rionegro some time before November 1838 because in that month he married his second wife there, Dolores Montañez Contreras. They had some other kids.

This leads me to believe between 1832 and 1834 (the time between his second to last and last child with Francisca) he moved to Matanza which is where he met and had my 3rd great grandfather with Remigia who was born in the same month as his last child with the first wife, May 1834. Another distant family member and I believe that Felipe Eleuterio and our Felipe Novoa ancestor (my 4th great-grandfather) are one in the same.

1. Juan Felipe Novoa born 1804 in Surata (borders Matanza) to Juana Novoa and unknown father. There are no other records of him except the one where I found this information.

I doubt this is my ancestor because there are no other records of him, so he may have died as a baby/child.

1. Felipe Novoa husband of Francisca Solano. He is mentioned as the grandfather of his son, Felipe Novoa's children. Felipe Novoa and his wife Juana Perez and their children lived in Matanza from 1851-1859 or longer.

He could've been born c. 1830 or earlier. I think it's an interesting coincidence that Felipe Novoa's father, Felipe Novoa was married to a Francisca Solano just like how the other Felipe married one Francisca Megía. I think it's possible that they mixed up the surnames. People from Spanish speaking countries usually have two surnames and it's possible that they mixed up the surnames. So Francisca could've been Francisca Megía Solano, but eventually it got switched and the Megía was dropped because usually they don't mention the second surname in records. Also, Felipe Novoa and Francisca Megía were having kids as early as 1822 (their marriage) or 1824 (the birth of their first child) until 1834 or Francisca's death, so this Felipe Novoa could have been born in this time and had kids in the time frame given before.

If I fuse 1 and 3 into one big amalgamation this is how the story would play out: Felipe Eleuterio married Francisca Megía and had a few kids, one also being named Felipe in Rionegro, Santander. They moved to Matanza (borders Rionegro) and Felipe Eleueterio had a son named Felipe Novoa with Remigia Guerrero. He moved back to Rionegro with or without Felipe Novoa son of Remigia where he married Dolores Montañez and had more children. Felipe Novoa son of Francisca went to Matanza and started his family. Felipe Novoa (my 3rd great grandfather) son of Remigia started his family in Rionegro.

I want to say that Felipe Eleuterio, Felipe husband of Francisca Solano, and my 4th great grandfather are all the same, but I know it's possible they are all different people. I think there are so many coincidences though, that it may just be possible. There are also three or four possible matches for Remigia Guerrero, but I won't get into them in this post.

How should I go about this mess? Thank you!

Hi guys! I am having great difficulty finding anything on my ancestors from Ukraine, I don't know any cities or regions within Ukraine. I have only been able to get information up to my great-great-great-grandparents. I have the wife, whose name is Parania Chuchyshyn 1844-1934 and the husband is Hrihory Zurevinsky no birthdays or death-dates are known for him. They immigrated to Saskatchewan sometime after July 16 1888. If you have any information you can give to me for finding these guys, that would be very helpful. Thank you so much!

I just found my 5x great grandfathers marriage record. It lists his mother’s surname as Olszewski. Now I’m getting a hint for his baptism record. It lists her name as Olschewski. His age and father’s name is right. Does this seem like a plausible alternative spelling?

One of my dna matches is placed on my tree at 5th cousin level, however we share 70cM, which DNA painter and other calculators give these predictions as the highest probability-half 3c, 3c1r, half 2c2r, 2c3r, with 5th cousin only being 5% probability. I’ve noticed simarly high shared cM with quite a lot of, if not most, other matches from the same paternal line. Eg I have a “first cousin” who actually fits into “double cousin” criteria. Any idea what might be going on?

Would it be too far back?

Hi there I recently found out my great grandmother’s sister came to the US through Ellis Island at the turn of the last century. Me and my parents came here in the early two thousandths and I never knew we have some long lost relatives here, it would be kind of cool to maybe try to reach out to them and maybe connect? I was able to find the ship manifest, my relatives name and through my grandfather I found out what her husband’s name was. What do I do now lol?

Hi - I'm trying to research on the GRO for adoption records to see if my grandfather is possibly adopted - but I am kind of confused by the GRO.

I type in all of the information that is required to submit, but when it goes onto the confirmation screen, does it mean the adoption certificate exists and i'm paying to get the adoption certificate, or am I paying to see if it exists? I am really confused by this - because I don't want to pay that much if the certificate doesn't actually exist.

Could anyone help explain? Thank you

Once AI started rolling out to the masses, I immediately began testing it on records from the Romanian (Transylvanian) village that my grandmother's family was from, but was underwhelmed by the results. That is, until I tried Google's recently released Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental model.

This is a video demonstration of me using Google Gemini 2.5 Pro to analyze genealogical records. Gemini 2.5 Pro then outputs the records as a GEDCOM file for me to upload to a family tree website.

https://youtu.be/sgwCsfu3HIQ?si=GCwr6Hsg7IfEchLN

So I’m trying to figure out why a father and 3 kids lived in Germany but only 2 of the kids decided to live in America. I will explain the story below:

There were 2 people named Maria and Johann. They had 3 children named Eva, Johann and John. The husband lived from 1802 to 1870. The wife lived from 1811 to 1845.

I’m trying to think of why Eva and her middle brother johann (and the johann’s partner) decided to move to America in the late 1850s but why the older Johann (the father) and his youngest child John decided to stay in Germany .

Birth years and death years of the family:

Johann (father) 1802-1870 (did not immigrate) Maria (mother) 1811-1845 (did not immigrate because of early death)

Eva (daughter) 1833-1903 (immigrated) Johann (son) 1835-1900 (immigrated) John (son) 1843-1901 (did not immigrate)

Any help would be nice and if you need more info please feel free to message me or comment.

Not big into genealogy just thought I’d take a test. My dad’s dna test says he’s 100 percent Ashkenazi Jewish from Central Europe. My mom to my(and her) knowledge is just Vietnamese. My test came back and said 61 percent mainland southeast Asian, and 30 percent Eastern European Jewish+9 percent Central European Jewish . Not sure how my mom makes up for 61 percent of my dna but maybe the test is wrong?

Hello, I am looking for how to get a German Birth Certificate from 1899. The person in question is Charles Jean Albert Stucky born on 20 April 1899. Parent’s names might be Charles Stucky and Martha Schultz, as of his marriage record. I believe he was born in Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany, but the only source for that is family legend and his WWII draft card. I am having a hard time finding who to contact. So, my question is who or what to contact and how much it might cost. Thanks to whoever can help

Hello, I recently discovered that my German great-grandfather, Johann Jakob, was employed as a seaman (sailor) in Brazil and Australia from April 20th, 1921 to January 10th, 1925, according to this document. He returned to Germany after this.

I would love to find-out more about this and was wondering if there is any way I can see if Brazil or Australia has records on him? Please let me know if there is any authority I can request records from.

Not strictly a genealogy question, but I am guessing more people on this sub have experience with the UK National Archives than anywhere else.

I am working on a project specific to the Beatles’ 1970 High Court of the Chancery litigation (the partnership dissolution suit).

I was surprised that in 55 years, nobody has ever apparently digitized the records from the case and made them publicly available. You can find the box numbers at the UK national archive containing filings, affidavits, etc (two of the boxes are open to inspection, two of them are closed/sealed). But as far as I can tell there is no master list of records or docket entries for the case, and the only records available online are sporadic PDFs. For example, someone transcribed most of Allen Klein’s affidavit. But there are probably thousands of pages, and I’m not sure if anyone has ever looked at them since the case concluded.

I’ve had someone on site take a look at the volume and confirm that while the records are there and available for public inspection, there is no index/master docket and it’s two big boxes of paper. I’m trying to figure out how I could digitize these records without having to pay thousands of dollars. I’m willing to shell out some of my own cash, perhaps a decent amount, to obtain PDFs but I’m not sure how to go about it efficiently.

Has anyone ever done anything this extensive with the UK national archives? Anyone ever used their digitization service? Any ideas about third party scanning services that could simply digitize the entirety of these records?

So l've been trying to find my father. My mother never told me who he was, then when I was 18 told me one time it was this guy she knew back then, gave me his name and showed me his Facebook. That was like 2015/2016ish, fast forward to now. I have an ancestry result, and that guy is no where on these results or any of his family or surnames. So it's someone else. Top results shows this lady as my half-aunt or 1st cousin. We share 14% DNA, 1011 CM. Here's the confusion, her brother took a paternity test with me, it showed we do share 12 out of 22 genetic markers, but was a negative for paternity. I do have a half aunt and 2 half uncles on my mom's side, but they only share 10% (706CM), 10% (731cM) , and 11% (771CM). I feel like 770's to over 1000 shared is a big jump, does that make this woman more likely to be my half aunt? Or 1st cousin? I have a half first cousin as well on my results and he's shares 8% DNA with me, at 526cM.

Quick question hopefully, Family Search has higher quality image scans of the Quebec parish registers than I can find on Ancestry, so I often end up wanting to link to those. My issue comes when creating the citation on Ancestry.

On Family Search, the citation will read like this:

"Canada, Québec, registres paroissiaux catholiques, 1621-1979," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G99M-195Y?cc=1321742&wc=HCMG-829%3A13625901%2C13625902%2C13625903 : 16 July 2014), Baie-Saint-Paul > Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul-de-Baie-Saint-Paul > Baptêmes, mariages, sépultures 1681-1789 > image 182 of 1071; Archives Nationales du Quebec (National Archives of Quebec), Montreal.

I have FamilySearch set up as a repository and the "registres paroissiaux catholiques, 1621-1979" is my source, but I put that whole chunk in the citation itself.

Ancestry does NOT accept the ">" character in the field though. So I'm either putting it in the wrong place, or I have to go and manually adjust every citation that I paste to remove the characters. Doing it once or twice is fine but hundreds of times becomes annoying.

Am I overlooking some easy way to format that citation in a way that Ancestry will accept? Sometimes I've just resorted to taking a screenshot and uploading the media and writing down the details in the fields there but it doesn't create a linked source. I have thought of just doing a "find and replace" but that seems awfully finicky, I don't understand why Ancestry just won't accept that character.

Is there a Japanese version of Find A Grave for Japan. Trying to find family gravesite for members of the Nakata family near the Furuichi station in Japan. All they remember is it’s a short walk from the station and there’s gravel between the graves.

Are there any free genogram charts I can make by just importing GEDCOM? I cant use Ancestry cause I dont have a credit card, I'm only 15.

Been lurking for a while and this is probably a long shot but I’ll try anyway as I’ve seen you lovely peeps turn up the most deeply buried rocks ever! I have a great grandfather who joined the Maltese/British navy when he was 12. From his naval records it says he was from Mahon, Balearic Isles born December 1797, his name was Guillermo Pons and his father had the same name and his mother was Antonia Figliolante. I have no access to Spanish records and don’t believe there is any way to get hold of his baptism/birth record or a marriage record for his parents unless I travel there except I live in Canada so it’s a bit of a trek. Does anyone have any contacts or have any idea on how I could get further on this line? I know that many Pons came to the southern states of the US 2-300 years ago and there are pedigrees of this family online but I need to go back further to connect to it Thanks in advance