Very Important Tip for Using Ancestry.Com.........

Discipulus

Sergeant
Joined
Mar 30, 2015
Location
DuPage Cnty, IL
Do NOT settle using the search boxes! You will miss most of the goodies! The search boxes only search the most popular databases. There are literally THOUSANDS of databases on Ancestry.Com that can only be searched manually. Here is what I do for the Civil War databases --

From the homepage, pull down the Search menu and click on "Card Catalog."

(Look at the thousands of databases the search engines don't visit!)

When I am at the Card Catalog page I use the filters on the left. I choose --

"USA"
"Military"
"1800s"

-- that leaves me with a list of 794 databases to scroll through, most dealing with the ACW. Most of these databases are indexed so will have their own search boxes when you click on them. But a few will be just microfilms that need to be browsed.

Ancestry.Com has started deleting these databases because people aren't using them or are duplicated elsewhere. Don't let a prize get away, check them out now.
 
Do those databases have links that can be reached outside of a membership to ancestry. com?
Once many years ago Ancestry allowed access to them to non-members but that appeared to be a one-off.

Non-members can usually access all of Ancestry.Com via their public library, and definitely through their local Family History Center (genealogy services provided by the Mormon church). The public can also access Fold3 via their local FHC.

I will also tell you a secret. Many of those "databases" are history books, genealogy books, etc. that non-members can access on Books.Google.Com Not all of them, but many of them. I will discover a source on Ancestry.Com then run over to Google Books and download the whole book for free. ;-)
 
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