Filtering Full Text Search Results on FamilySearch Step-by-step

Key points and insights

Unlocking the hidden potential of historical documents requires more than a simple name search; it demands a strategic approach to navigating vast digital archives. This webinar, led by Dawn Carlile, provides an essential guide to utilizing full-text search filters to uncover genealogical records that might otherwise remain buried. By moving beyond basic queries and leveraging advanced filtering techniques, researchers can transform a sea of millions of results into a manageable list of highly relevant leads. This session is particularly valuable for those looking to harness the power of AI-driven search engines to find ancestors within unindexed image groups, such as court records, deeds, and biographies.

Precision Filtering Techniques: The webinar emphasizes a step-by-step filtering process—moving from broad surnames to specific regions, counties, and even towns—to drastically reduce overwhelming result sets while ensuring potential matches aren’t lost.

The Power of Wildcards and Logic: Advanced search operators, such as the asterisk for multiple character variations and the question mark for single-letter uncertainty, are critical tools for overcoming the phonetic and creative spelling common in historical records.

Navigating AI Limitations: While AI-driven full-text search is incredibly fast, it is not infallible; researchers are encouraged to look for “image group numbers” and investigate results where no year was detected, as these often contain misread or complex handwritten data.

To fully grasp these dynamic searching strategies and see them applied in real-time examples, viewing the complete webinar is highly recommended. The session provides a visual walkthrough of the interface, demonstrating exactly how the search engine reacts to different query structures and filter combinations. Watching the full presentation will equip any researcher with the confidence to tackle large-scale record sets with surgical precision. Additionally, genealogists are invited to explore the supplemental resources included in the syllabus, which offer further depth on specific record types and advanced search syntax.