Use Nicknames in Your Newspaper Searches to Find 50% More Ancestor Articles

In old newspapers and other genealogically-related documents (especially census records), nicknames were frequently used, as those names were more often used than the “formal” given name of the person.

Your search index database is not smart enough, for example, to interpret ‘Sadie” for the formal given name of “Sarah”. Thus, you will need to use both names separately in your search criteria.

So when developing your search criteria for both genealogy and newspaper searches, you need to include nicknames in your repertoire.

I guarantee that you will get a vastly increased number of positive results by searching with nicknames as well as formal given names.

Here are some articles that list common and old-time nicknames that you should employ in your search criteria:

• A Listing of Some Nicknames Used in the 18th & 19th Centuries
• Traditional Nicknames in Old Documents
• Vintage Nicknames for Girls
• 64 of the Best Old-Fashioned Boy Names

In the table below, there are about 60 or so common, “old-time” nicknames.

Download the Quicksheet PDF

To download the Nicknames Quick Sheet PDF, click on the Download button:

For all the previously published Quick Reference Guides, click on QuickSheets. 

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