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LolliaSabina

Looking for records? Some tips (and assistance available)

General

Wanted to share some tips and tricks that may help those of you who are searching for records without any luck. I am not a pro, but I am also an amateur genealogist with over 20 years of experience, particularly in French Canadian genealogy. (Also, it turns out I wrote a whole book ... oops! I hope it's helpful!)

(Note: If you're still stuck, please feel free to DM me for help. Make sure you include not just the name of the person you want to find, but also which docs you need, where the person lived (either in Canada or the US), and rough birth/death dates -- if known. It's also VERY helpful if you can include the names of either a spouse, parent(s), or child(ren) so I can ensure I've got the right person.)

So, some things that can help to know:

  • Search tips:
    • If searching for your ancestor isn't turning anything up, try searching for their parents, their spouse, and/or their siblings. Sometimes one name will be mangled, illegible, or missing in a record, but another will be readable.
    • You can use wildcard searches on Ancestry and FamilySearch to help with variable spellings. For example, if you're looking for Josephte Jourdonnais, but you've seen both names spelled multiple ways, you could try searching for Jos* Jo*rd?n*s for better results.
    • For Ancestry:
      • You can enter multiple names in the first and last name fields and it will search for all of them. E.g., if I'm looking for Michel Leandre Palardis, who went by Michael Lee Palardy, I could search for "Michel Leandre Michael Lee" under first name and "Palardis Palardy" under surname.
      • Be aware that the hints are primarily based on what records OTHER users added; they may or may not have been right, so review record hints closely.
    • For FamilySearch:
      • You will NOT get good results with searching for multiple versions names in FamilySearch, as with Ancestry. Instead, add alternate spellings or anglicized versions of names as "Alternate names" when searching. For the above example, I would enter "Michel Palardis" in the name search, then "Michael Palardy" in the alternate name field. (I generally omit middle names when using FmailySearch.)
      • The FamilySearch search function is ... not great. If you're searching for a birth record in 1850 in Ontario, don't include that the person was married in 1870 in Chicago, or died in 1952 in Minnesota. It will mess up the search results.
  • Do NOT trust online trees. These can be helpful for hints, but a HUGE number of them are unsourced and/or full of errors.
  • Ensure the record you've found is actually for the person you want. One of the most common mistakes is assuming someone is the person you're looking for just because they have the same name. (And even unusual names aren't safe -- it could be a family name that was used frequently.) Check dates, locations, and relatives. Do these make sense with what you know about the person? If Joe was living in Michigan in 1910 and 1930 with his wife Jenny, he's probably not living with a wife named Sarah in Wyoming in 1920. If Sally had kids named Ralph, Randall and Rose in 1870, and none of them are in the 1880 census although would have still been minors, take a second look.
  • Birth dates were somewhat fluid. Before the advent of social security and other programs, it wasn't terribly important to know exactly when you were born. Most people's idea of their birth year could vary by a couple of years either way. (Interestingly, people would generally know if they were born in, say, August, but be unsure of which year exactly.) So if you've found a record that seems to be exactly what you're looking for, but Great-Grandma was born a year earlier than you thought, don't stress too much about it.
  • Be aware that spelling back then was VERY changeable, especially as many people were not literate. Names will be spelled various ways, whether your ancestor was French or English: "Mirau" could also be "Mireault" or "Meroux," for example, or "Hicks" could also be "Hix."
  • This goes triple if your ancestor was a Francophone who moved to an English-speaking area.
    • If they kept their original French name, the spelling was likely butchered, badly, in a lot of records. I've seen Beauchamp -- a relatively simple name -- as "Bearchamp" and "Buechamp."
    • They may have anglicized their first and/or last name -- e.g., Francois became Frank. Sometimes there wasn't an English version of a name and the French speaker just picked something kinda close (Narcisse became Nelson, Udger became Jerry). And sometimes, they picked something completely random even if there WAS an English equivalent ... why did Maxime became Mike instead of Max? Who knows?!
    • Sometimes the surname was translated -- Roch became Rock, Bonenfant became Goodchild. (I haven't seen this a lot but it does happen occasionally.)
  • More special notes for French records:
    • It was common for all or most girls in a family to be named "Marie Something" ... Marie Marguerite, Marie Adeline, Marie Cecile ... but to go by the second name. So don't let all the Maries confuse you! (You'll also sometimes see this to a lesser extent with Joseph for boys.)
    • French baptismal names could be VERY long, but most of those names were never used. You will likely find your ancestor's "normal" name hidden in there somewhere. "Eliza Boucher" may have been baptized as "Marie Eliza Antoinette Boucher."
    • Be aware of the tendency to re-use names in a family; infant mortality rates were VERY high, and many families would re-use a deceased child's name for another child. If you find a record for your ancestor but the birth date doesn't line up with what you believe it should be, ensure the record doesn't belong to an older sibling who passed away.
  • Know which sources of data are the most reliable: Censuses are useful, but whoever opened the door was the one who answered the questions, and they may not have been the most knowledgeable. Death certificates are very reliable for the date and place of death, but not nearly so much for birthdate/place and parents' names. (Look at the informant -- if it's a sibling or parent of the deceased, the info may be good ... if it's a child or a spouse who married them later in life, maybe not so much.)

Some free resources that can help:

Posted Jan 26, 2026, 8:25 PM UTC

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