{"id":86567,"date":"2022-09-08T14:34:22","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T18:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=86567"},"modified":"2023-07-17T09:24:35","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T13:24:35","slug":"genealogy-tip-narrow-your-search-and-sort-your-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/genealogy-tip-narrow-your-search-and-sort-your-results.html","title":{"rendered":"Genealogy Tip: Narrow Your Search and Sort Your Results"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/em><\/strong>: In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega shows how to narrow your searches and sort your search results to make your ancestor searches more efficient. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book \u201cFrom the Family Kitchen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve entered your search terms into your genealogy website\u2019s search engine. Now you have pages of records to look through, especially historical newspapers. That\u2019s great for your research \u2013 but now what do you do?<\/p>\n

Just looking through your results might not be the best next step. Depending on how many results you have or the popularity of the name or keyword you\u2019re searching, you may have relevant results hiding on page 6 \u2013 it will take you a while to find that record. What should you do instead?<\/p>\n

Narrow your search and sort those results.<\/p>\n

Narrow Your Search<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are several ways to narrow your search on GenealogyBank. For example, using the Advanced Search allows you to include (or exclude) words, add dates or year ranges, and specify a location or newspaper title.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Sort Your Results<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s another tool you can use that will impact how you view your results: don\u2019t forget about the option to Sort your results.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Sorting results is exactly what you might imagine. It\u2019s a way to take your results list and sort it in ways that are most relevant to you. Sorting your results determines which results you see first. This is crucial the more pages of results you have.<\/p>\n

The default sort option for GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a> is by Relevance. The Relevance option shows the best matches first. But Relevance may not be the way you want to sort results, depending on your research question.<\/p>\n

What are the Sort options you have? You can sort results by:<\/p>\n