Here’s a revised version that tightens the writing, improves flow, and keeps the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun tone you and Randy’s readers expect—while also setting up your images and captions more smoothly. I’ve preserved your content and intent, but clarified wording, corrected small errors, and improved transitions.
Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:
It’s Saturday Night again—
Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!
Come on, everybody—join in, accept the mission, and execute it with precision.
This Week’s Mission
- FamilySearch Full-Text Search continues to expand, adding new databases and searchable images to its collections. This feature is a gold mine—especially for land, probate, and court records.
- Pick one or two of your ancestors (or research targets) and see what you can uncover using FamilySearch Full-Text Search.
FamilySearch’s full-text searching has truly been a game changer. Not only does it help locate records quickly, but it also provides automatic transcriptions. That said, it isn’t perfect. Searches can be slow at times, and for those of us with trees full of same-name individuals, the tool doesn’t always distinguish which record belongs to which person.
Because of that, when I use full-text search seriously, I tend to save everything I find for a person in a dedicated Scrivener folder. That gives me time to sort through records later, study land and neighbors, and eventually tease out family connections.
For this Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post, though, I needed something a bit less time-consuming.
My Pick for the Challenge
I decided to see what FamilySearch Full-Text Search could reveal about my great-grandaunt, Ida Kate Crawford, and her husband Alva Oris Sherman.
My search parameters were simple:
- Name: “Alva Sherman”
- Years: 1930–1940
- Place: Pierce County, Washington
While I didn’t locate a will or probate record, I did uncover several interesting records that add helpful details to this family’s story.
Records Found
1900 Birth Record (Tacoma, Pierce County, Washington)
Son’s Death Certificate
Ida Kate Crawford Sherman’s Death Information
Each of these records was located using FamilySearch Full-Text Search, demonstrating how this tool can surface valuable documents—even when they aren’t where you might expect to find them.
FamilySearch’s full-text search may not replace careful analysis, but it is an incredibly powerful discovery tool. Used thoughtfully, it can point us to records we might otherwise never find—and that’s a win in my book.
Now it’s your turn—what did you discover this Saturday night?