I like the new feature of the census image pages whereby I can leave comments for certain names. On the 1850 slave schedule for Meriwether, GA, I was able to add comments telling the first names of four slaves that were owned by my ancestors (I had found the names in a will). Anyone who happens to come across this particular page will get that information.

I am wondering if it is possible for a member to add to the actual search engine, so that if someone were trying to search for, say, a black female in Georgia named Delpha who was born in 1846, they would have a way to find this slave schedule. It kills me to have a small bit of potentially valuable information and no way of making it available in searches. If I added the slaves' first names, ages, and genders as alternates to the slave owners, would those names show up in searches? Or is there another way?

If you post the text of the will on a public tree as a story I think it should show up in a search if someone just searches for the first name Delpha. It is a shame that comments do not become part of the searchable database.

You could email Anne Mitchell who is a product manager for search at Ancestry.com and ask her. Her email is amitchell at tgn.com .