Your best bet is to search first on the ancestor's and the spouse's names. If the spouse is female, just use her first name. Quite a few researchers omit the maiden name. So it is best to not try to find it. If you get too many responses this way, add the father's name of the ancestor. If you get too few responses, omit the spouse's name and use only the father's name with the ancestor's name.
How to Search Ancestry.com® for Family Trees
- There are three categories of family trees available at Ancestry.com. The Best Way to Search All Three Categories: Go to Active Searches for easier searching. At the Active Searches page, you need only to enter your ancestor data once to search all the websites listed at the left. Active Searches is a free service that creates the optimal searches for your ancestor data.
- Manually search yourself. This will open a new window so you can refer back to the search hints above.
Ancestry World Tree Capabilities at the Ancestry.com® Website
The Ancestry World Tree is a collection of user-submitted family trees. It contains millions of references to lineage linked individuals and families identifying research on given family lines. See the definition of terms for any questions on the meaning of the entries.
| x | free searches |
| x | free viewing of pedigrees |
| paid viewing | |
| x | free downloads of pedigrees |
| paid downloads | |
| x | contact information for submitter |
| ability to see all the names submitted by a particular researcher | |
| x | ability to restrict searches to updates since a specific time |
| x | searches with spouse's name |
| x | searches with parent's names |
| x | searches by place of birth |
| searches by place of marriage | |
| x | searches by place of death |
| x | searches by country |
| x | searches by state, province, or political subdivision |
| x | searches by date |
| x | ability to specify date ranges for searching |
| x | searches by exact spelling of name |
| x | searches by metaphone |
| x | searches by soundex |
| ability to automatically find possible matches in your ancestry |
OneWorldTree Capabilities at the Ancestry.com® Website
The Ancestry OneWorldTree takes family trees submitted by Ancestry members and "stitches" them together with family trees and historical records from other sources. See the definition of terms for any questions on the meaning of the entries.
| x | free searches |
| free viewing of pedigrees | |
| x | paid viewing |
| free downloads of pedigrees | |
| x | paid downloads (if you go to the user-submitted trees) |
| x | contact information for submitter (if you go to the user-submitted trees) |
| ability to see all the names submitted by a particular researcher | |
| ability to restrict searches to updates since a specific time | |
| x | searches with spouse's name |
| x | searches with parent's names |
| x | searches by place of birth |
| searches by place of marriage | |
| x | searches by place of death |
| x | searches by country |
| x | searches by state, province, or political subdivision |
| x | searches by date |
| x | ability to specify date ranges for searching |
| x | searches by exact spelling of name |
| x | searches by metaphone |
| x | searches by soundex |
| ability to automatically find possible matches in your ancestry |
Public Member Trees Capabilities at the Ancestry.com® Website
These are trees submitted to Ancestry.com by users who have indicated that their trees can be viewed by all Ancestry members. These family tree can, however, also be searched by non-members as well. See the definition of terms for any questions on the meaning of the entries.
| x | free searches |
| free viewing of pedigrees | |
| x | paid viewing |
| free downloads of pedigrees | |
| x | paid downloads (you can copy people from a tree to your own member tree) |
| x | contact information for submitter |
| ability to see all the names submitted by a particular researcher | |
| x | ability to restrict searches to updates since a specific time |
| x | searches with spouse's name |
| x | searches with parent's names |
| x | searches by place of birth |
| searches by place of marriage | |
| x | searches by place of death |
| x | searches by country |
| x | searches by state, province, or political subdivision |
| x | searches by date |
| x | ability to specify date ranges for searching |
| x | searches by exact spelling of name |
| x | searches by metaphone |
| x | searches by soundex |
| x | ability to automatically find possible matches in your ancestry |