Finding More Sources by Changing Names

If you have used Family Tree at familysearch.org, you know how great it is to have potential sources found for you to evaluate. Sometimes it takes a bit of prodding to get it to find new sources. Here's a couple of examples of how I did this today.

I had a person named William Glomski. I attached the sources it found for him but I did not know his wife's maiden name to find anything about their family together. Her first name was given in one of the sources so I created a record for his wife using only her first name. Family Tree did its thing and found records for the couple's children which also included the mother's maiden name!

Originally, William was born Wladyslaw and his record was created using Wladyslaw. When I changed the name in Family Tree to William, I found more records. I am not sure if the 'alternate name' field is used to locate sources so you might try changing the name if only temporarily to see if new sources come up. For example, someone named Jadwiga might also have gone by Hedwig, Harriet, Hattie, or ...

So being mindful of name changes (even formal names versus nicknames) can be important in locating more records of relevance.