Thanks to the Simple Search function being tested by FamilySearch.org, I know when and where Frances Walasyk died. I had been looking on the usual genealogy websites but no luck. Until now.
Simple Search is a plain language search tool in beta. No complicated search forms, no special wording or numbers, no range of dates. Really simple. And, after testing a few queries, I discovered it's both simple and effective.
To start, go to the Family Search Labs page and click on the experiment called Try Simple Search. In the search box, you can type your query or even speak it (click on the microphone at bottom right of query box). Then click the search button.
Frances was the mother of my aunt Dorothy's life partner. Frances seemed to disappear from official records after the 1940 US Census and after signing an Alien Registration AR-2 form later in 1940. Could Simple Search find her?
Surprisingly, my simple query (shown above) returned one result, only one. It was precisely what I needed: a legal document related to Frances's estate. She died on March 5, 1948 and a week later, her daughter Leona (aka Lee Wallace) petitioned the court for power of attorney to settle the estate. A simple question answered in seconds.
Your actual mileage may vary, and past performance is no guarantee of future performance. My other Simple Search queries for other ancestors returned pages and pages of results, some highly relevant and some less relevant. I'm still experimenting with filtering results by year, place, collection, and so on.
I definitely recommend giving this experiment a test or three!
