The free FamilySearch.org site has made it very easy to search for any photos, documents or stories contributed by other family history researcher which is housed at the FamilySearch database, ‘Find‘.
The simplest method is using their search box and placing a surname. True you will have to look through many listings with just a surname, but this way you will not overlook any possible matches because of a given name for an ancestor that you overlooked. For those with more common surnames, do place a given name also. Even placing in the search ‘Donald Jones’ produced 26,475 results – covering obituaries, diplomas, photos, and stories. Putting the name in quote marks “Donald Jones” narrowed the results to 22. If you find a selection with ‘more’ written, click on that for additional information.
Even if you do not find a specific ancestor you are looking for, do look at the documents, photos and stories of similar individuals especially if they were from the area area as your ancestor. There might be a tie-in. Answer a surname will appear for a person who contributed the photo or story. That person could turn out to be a cousin.
So spend some time with the ‘Find‘ on FamilySearch.org. It could prove to be a wealth of information. If not, then add to the site with your own collection on your family.
Photos: Portrait of Donald Jones and view of Constantia Musselman’s house in Ohio.
Related FamilyTree.com genealogical blogs:
Preserve Family Photos, etc on FamilySearch
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