Ancestral File: Searching

(Last updated 01 March, 2003)

Ancestral File, or AF, is a FamilySearch database containing compiled genealogies submitted by LDS (Mormon) church members and other genealogists. It was last updated in 1996, and contains over 29 million names. It is a useful tool for beginning research and for coordinating research with other genealogists. However, the genealogies in Ancestral File have not been checked for accuracy, so it is important to verify information found there.

The information available from Ancestral File on deceased people may include the individual's name, family relationships, pedigree, birth, marriage, and death date and place, and the submitter's name and address. Privacy laws prevent the Ancestral File from listing most of the data pertaining to living people.

Opening Ancestral File

At the FamilySearch screen, press Enter.
At the Main Menu, use the arrow keys to highlight Ancestral File, and press Enter.

Navigation Keys

Ancestral File is very user-friendly in that the screen always lists the available options. Simply reading the screen allows for easy navigation. The first screen in AF contains the same options as other FamilySearch programs:

Esc allows the user to exit a screen or exit the program.
F1 opens a help screen.
F2 opens the Print menu.
F4 begins a search.

Searching for an Individual

Press F4 to begin a search.
Use the arrow keys to select the option to search for similar surname spelling (option A on the search menu). This type of search is fast, and allows the user to search for variant spellings of an ancestors' name.
Type in the ancestor's name. The given name is the first name, and the surname is the last name (maiden name for women). Press the Tab key to move from one field to the next.
Type in the ancestor's birth year. If the year is unknown, estimate it. This weeds out individuals who were born in the wrong century or decade.
Press Enter or F12 to finalize the search.
From the Index screen, scan through the individuals whose names and dates come closest to the search criteria.
Use the arrow keys to highlight the name of a possible ancestor.
Press Enter to see the detail screen, which contains more information on the individual.
From the detail screen, press Enter again to get the full individual record. This yields birth, christening, death, burial, marriage, and LDS ordinance information, if available. Note: Ancestral File is not the official LDS index of temple ordinances. For information on an ancestor's completed ordinances, see the Ordinance Index® under LDS Options on the FamilySearch Main Menu).
From the Individual Record screen, press Esc to exit one screen at a time and get back to the Index.

The Family Screen

From the Index screen, highlight an individual and press F6 to see his family. From the Family screen, an individual's details can be viewed just as they could from the Index screen: Highlight the individual using the arrow keys, and press Enter.

The Pedigree Screen

Highlight an individual whose ancestors are listed on the AF, and open the Pedigree screen by pressing the F7 key. A plus sign (+) by an individual's name means he has more than one set of parents listed. Often, these "extra" parents are duplicates of the originals, duplicates which have slightly different information. Pedigree lines which extend beyond the screen are marked with arrows (< or >). These lines can be followed by highlighting the arrows and pressing Enter.

The Descendancy Screen

Highlight an individual whose descendants are listed on the AF, and open the Descendancy screen by pressing the F8 key. A descendancy outline will appear. Each new generation is indented further than the last, and numbers are placed by each individual to show his generation. Thus, the first individual is marked with a "1," his children are marked with a "2," and his grandchildren are marked with a "3."

Sources

From any screen, the F9 key yields the names and addresses of researchers who submitted the highlighted ancestor. The submission number, found on the right, yields the year of submission. Thus, for submission AF91-000001, 1991 is the submission year. This tells users the age of the submitter's address information.

Backtracking

The F10 key is very useful in AF. It summons a screen which allows the user to go back to any screen he previously viewed.

Printing

To print from any screen, press the F2 key. This opens a menu which allows various reports to be printed. Note that to print each report, the user must access the Print menu from the proper screen. Thus, pedigrees print from the Pedigree screen, family group reports print from the Family screen, and so on.

For speedy data transfer, the Print menu allows data to be saved to disk. Text files can be saved for use in word processors, and GEDCOM files can be saved, making it easy to transfer data from Ancestral File to the user's personal computer without transcribing it by hand. Later lessons cover the process of downloading GEDCOMs from Ancestral File and importing them into PAF.