Ancestry’s Tree Tools

Do you have multiple people in your family tree with the same name—perhaps even living in the same location? If so, you’ve likely struggled to keep them straight or wondered how to easily generate a list of those individuals for closer comparison.

Thanks to Ancestry’s Pro Tools and its powerful tree filtering capabilities, that task is now much easier.

I recently used the tree filter to search for everyone in my tree who had any event connected to Augusta County, Virginia. The result? A list of 166 individuals with ties to that location—including several men named James Crawford.

• James Crawford (1719 Scotland – before 1750 Augusta County, Virginia)
• James Crawford (1748 Augusta County, Virginia – abt 1825, Madison County, Alabama)
• James Crawford (about 1750 Augusta county, Virginia – Feb 1812, Orange County, North Carolina)
• James Crawford (1752/3 Augusta county, Virginia – 1803 Fayette County, Kentucky)
• James Crawford (1758 AUguesta County, Virginia – 1836 Jefferson County, Indiana)
• James Crawford (1772, Virginia – 1854 Washington County, Arkansas)
• James Crawford (1787 Augusta County, VIrginia – 1855 Augusta County, Virginia)
• James Crawford (1793 Augusta County, VIrginia – ?)
• James Crawford (1802 Augusta County, Virginia – 1872 Monre County, Missouri)
• Jaems Crawford (? – 1798)
• James Alexander Crawford (1800 Augusta County, VIrginia – 1861 DeWitt County, Texas)

While Ancestry’s location filter is a quick and easy way to search a tree, it’s not foolproof. When I searched for any event in Garrard County, Kentucky, only two individuals with the Crawford surname appeared:

• Isaac Crawford (1790, Garrard, Kentucky – ?)
• William Hamilton Crawford (1823, Fayette, Kentucky – Feb 1902)

Surprisingly, the filter did not return my ancestor James Crawford, who was married in Garrard County in 1799. It also missed another James Crawford, husband of Rebecca Anderson, who owned land in Garrard County.

When I investigated further, I discovered the issue: the event locations in their records were listed as “Garrard, Kentucky, United States”—the format used in my RootsMagic file. Since I uploaded that file to Ancestry, those place names transferred exactly as entered. However, Ancestry’s filter recognizes locations in the format “Garrard County, Kentucky, USA”. Unfortunately, a filter using one format doesn’t pick up events recorded in another.

Ancestry’s Pro Tools tree filters can be a powerful way to explore patterns in your family tree—especially when trying to distinguish between people with the same name in the same location. However, as my experience with Garrard County, Kentucky shows, inconsistent place name formatting can limit the effectiveness of these searches. If you’re using a synced or uploaded tree, it’s worth remembering that Ancestry’s protocol might differ from the protocol used in your data.