Filter Ancestry hints by collection

Did you know it is possible to filter Ancestry’s shaky leaf hints by any collection you want? No, there is no link on the website, at least not in the Australian .com.au version Ancestry, but it’s not hard to do.

Here’s the recipe for a link to shaky leaf hints from the collection of your choice:

http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/TREE/hints?src=hw&hf=record&hs=last&hdbid=DATABASE

Replace TREE with the number of your Ancestry tree. You’ll find it in the URL when you look at your tree on Ancestry.

Replace DATABASE with the ID number for the collection you want to filter on. You’ll find it in the URL when you navigate to the search page for that collection. For example, to search the 1851 England census you would head to http://search.ancestry.com.au/search/db.aspx?dbid=8860&enc=1 and find the number 8860.

That’s all there is to it! Soon you will have your fill of the low hanging fruit hidden behind those shaky leaves, and even better you will decide for yourself if today you feel like apples or bananas!

Some of my favourite database ID numbers are:

1635	Victoria, Australia, Assisted and Unassisted Passenger Lists, 1839–1923
1904	England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966
2972	England & Wales, Non-Conformist and Non-Parochial Registers, 1567-1970
8978	England census 1841
8860	England census 1851
8767	England census 1861
7619	England census 1871
7572	England census 1881
6598	England census 1891

If I keep going I’ll soon list their whole catalogue…

But I won’t stop before I say… Pssst! If you want to check BillionGraves this way while the link still works (it did for me today 14/8/2014) the ID number to use is 70734.

One hundred words a day

I’ve always thought that writing a family history book seemed a daunting task - probably because it is a daunting task. I’ve tried to make a start a few times in the past but always floundered, overwhelmed by the scope of the project.

The trouble with that is, I would really like to write a more substantial family history document that I can share!

It occurred to me that although writing a whole book, even a short one, sounds like hard work… writing 100 words doesn’t sound so bad. One hundred words is hardly anything. You could do it every day without breaking a sweat!

So, that’s what I’m doing. I’m writing (at least) 100 words each day. Sometimes I will write more than that, which is great, but all that I have promised myself is the manageable target of 100 words a day.

Tonight I have written 277 words taking my total to 1,100 words so I am giving myself a pat on the back for overachieving on my 100 word goal!