Am I the only one to discover my "old search" has been invaded by the goofy new search program...trying to research the name "Lawson Rich" and I am getting every "Rich" name in the results BUT Lawson... and it is a Miss-mash" of unrelated hits. and when I narrowed down my search to just the 1910 census...Ancenstry gives me a HINT that someone has a LARSON CARTER in their family tree???? Come on guys even a first grader wouldn't match that up...stop messing with this site...

Is "exact match" checked? I have noticed that if I go to Old Search from New Search the "exact match" is unchecked and that will give you lots of unrelated results.

OK...checking "exact match" works...but how do you get the results to show broken down by category and not line by line by line by line so you go thru hit after hit after hit.
The OLD SEARCH showed one page with all of the categories there for you to explore i.e. Census Records broken down by dyears only...Military Catagory with all of the sub-headings, etc.

Old search still has the same format for me. When you do a search on the upper right hand corner it will say either old search or new search. If it says old search, click on it, you are actually in new search. New search is the default every time you log into ancestry.com, you need to choose old search each time you log in. Then it will be the default for that session, until you log out. Very confusing, I know.

because of wonkiness in the actual search engine platform and because of the different ways different databases have been indexed, very often if you check "exact" in an Old Search User Interface search form, you will get *no* matches.

But if you just uncheck "exact" you will very often get results with the exact same data that were not found with "exact" checked.

New Search is much better about paying attention to places specified in the search.

Note that in Old Search "exact" mode you often have the option of a Soundex search, which sometimes helps make up for the very limited application of using the "*" wildcard (only after you enter the first 3 characters in a name).

Interesting as my experience with new search, I find less relevant results. And if I give it everything I know(bmd, parents, locations) new search gives me nothing. For me a search with wildcards, exact match checked, in old search gives me what I need. I use wildcards in names like Catherine - Cath*rine - since the search does not know that sometimes a is used instead of e.

My frustration is not just over how you have to check and uncheck all of those boxes...but it is the way the results are now displayed...instead of a consise "menue" page of the various catagories, etc. you have a column which you must sift thru in order to find anything. I am trying to source a LOT of entries made in the beginning before I knew any better and it is very frustrating. I have had at times as many as five different windows opened so I can "hop" from one category to another. What I do not understand is why they (Ancenstry) has to change the manner the old search works...when what they are bringing into it is already available in "new search"...I just can see this all becoming one "new search" and it does not make me a happy camper.

The illogical sorting options are indeed one of the chief drawbacks of New Search. It wants you to look at the thousands of entries with huge numbers of 'hits' that may have a same first name or same surname, when the entry on the very last page with just exactly *one* hit may be the only relevant search result . . . on the 220th page of listings.

If only they would fix the way so many databases are erroneously cross-indexed (so many examples given in so many threads and ancestry-blog entries), and only key-word indexed, it would help. Until then, either search used as 'global' will return innumerable off-the-wall and irrelevant results.

Much more efficient to search specific databases until such time as a search engine with boolean capability is installed.

But they don't seem able even to limit search results from a tree individual. The drop-down list at bottom of initial search results, where you can choose "Give Priority to" collections of countries or regions is mainly disregarded. It would be very helpful to be able to specify *excluding all results except" X collections. For the people I am working on now, I hate getting results for British Isles vitals and Census items amid myriad irrelevant NC materials for people who never left West Virginia . . . with true WV matches after these.

Thank you! for mentioning it. I have to do the same thing...if I put in too much info I get zip..I have to be vauge and hunt thru the results..wwt? Is the new search better? I've had mixed feelings abt the new search like a yr ago, I never accepted it so I use old. I didnt like it then, Now they got all kinds of windows on the view of a census...and you have to close all that out to SEE the information.?? Damn, I sound like a Republican.

I'm so frustrated by the new search and the fact that the old one is now totally gone as I always defaulted back to that.
The new search either throws up nothing relevant at all (when I know exactly what would appear with the old search) or way too much info that I have to sift through with a fine toothcomb.
The old search was superb in every way. It's unbelievable that ancestry.co consider this an 'improvement'.
Also, when I hit the return button, instead of finding the names etc of all I'd previously typed in still there, the boxes are empty, so I have to fill in ALL the data again when with the old search, I'd just make one or two changes.