"How to Maximize Your Search Using Fold3" - Video Tutorial

[lupaglupa]

The Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana has a particularly large genealogy collection. This video, done by one of the librarians at the library, goes step-by-step through several ways to search Fold3. It's 47 minutes long; the section on the Civil War begins about 24 minutes in (though the techniques used to search older records are much the same). I found the pace slow but, that's typical for me. If you are a newbie to Fold3 or find yourself frustrated when looking for records, this might be helpful.

 

[scooter748driver]

Haven't watched it yet but definitely will! Thank you!

 

[Bob Velke]

The video was posted about 7 months ago and the Browse feature, in particular, has undergone a major revision in the last few weeks - for the much worse, IMHO.

And she doesn't say that the version of the pension index that is on Ancestry.com ($) is free on FamilySearch.org.

Otherwise, there is a lot of good information in it.

 

[Missouri Swampfox]

Can one of you go to Fold3, select a record and try to download it, either as a single page pdf or an entire file as a pdf, and see what you get? All of a sudden I get a pdf downloaded but it's empty. I've asked for help from Fold 3 but so far no results. I need to know if it's my system or theirs. I've tried Firefox and Edge, Windows 8 and Windows 11 but same results. The jpg download works fine. Thanks.

 

[lupaglupa]

I just did the entire file for a Tennessee soldier and, like you, got a complete blank.

In my experience getting help on the weekend is very, very rare. Try getting a file again on Monday after they've been open a bit - say, 11 am. If it's still a blank then contact them.

 

[Missouri Swampfox]

I just did the entire file for a Tennessee soldier and, like you, got a complete blank.

In my experience getting help on the weekend is very, very rare. Try getting a file again on Monday after they've been open a bit - say, 11 am. If it's still a blank then contact them.

This started in the middle of the week last week.

 

[lupaglupa]

So frustrating....

 

[Bob Velke]

Can one of you go to Fold3, select a record and try to download it, either as a single page pdf or an entire file as a pdf, and see what you get? All of a sudden I get a pdf downloaded but it's empty. I've asked for help from Fold 3 but so far no results. I need to know if it's my system or theirs. I've tried Firefox and Edge, Windows 8 and Windows 11 but same results. The jpg download works fine. Thanks.

As you say, it started in the middle of last week. I wrote to support last week too.

 

[Missouri Swampfox]

I just did the entire file for a Tennessee soldier and, like you, got a complete blank.

In my experience getting help on the weekend is very, very rare. Try getting a file again on Monday after they've been open a bit - say, 11 am. If it's still a blank then contact them.

Thank you. At least it's not my system.

 

[Missouri Swampfox]

As you say, it started in the middle of last week. I wrote to support last week too.

Thank you.

 

[lupaglupa]

I do wish they would be more communicative. Obviously they must, by now, know there's a problem. It would be so helpful if instead of fixing (we hope) the glitch behind the scenes without comment, they would acknowledge that there's an issue and let users know they are working on it.

 

[Bob Velke]

I got this response today:

"Thank you for contacting Fold3.com. We are aware of the issue and it is being fixed currently. Please check back often as it may take a day or two."

 

[lupaglupa]

I got this response today:

"Thank you for contacting Fold3.com. We are aware of the issue and it is being fixed currently. Please check back often as it may take a day or two."

Good to know - thanks for sharing that.

 

[Missouri Swampfox]

I got this response today:

"Thank you for contacting Fold3.com. We are aware of the issue and it is being fixed currently. Please check back often as it may take a day or two."

Thanks. Glad someone heard from them.

 

[Bob Velke]

The "Entire File" download worked for me this morning.

Each image is much smaller than necessary (and previously) but I guess we should count ourselves lucky that we can get it at all.