Genealogy Blog 

Cross-Database Search is an exclusive and powerful GeneaNet feature that compares your family tree against the complete GeneaNet database index

You first need to complete the form below to describe your search:

Search criteria

As seen in “Searching your ancestors in the GeneaNet collaborative database: 1-The Index”, you can search the index by surname, place and year.

Display mode

The search result list can be displayed in HTML or text mode. Text mode generates a delimited text file that can be imported in any spreadsheet.

Limit the search to a username

You may narrow the search by entering a username. This is interesting if you want to compare your family tree against a relative one.

Exclude a username

You may narrow the search by adding one or more usernames to the “Exclude a surname” field. This is interesting if you don’t want to compare your file against your relatives’ ones.

Important: Before running the search, save your list of usernames to exclude in the “My GeneaNet : Account : Search Preferences” menu.

You can exclude up to 20 usernames.

Club Privilege subscribers

The basic Cross-Database Search is running through the database index but Club Privilege subscribers may narrow the search to only return the records that fit with the online family trees.


The search results list contains all matches to the specified search and looks like any other GeneaNet search result list.

The “Contact” column gives the link to the user Page Contact so you can access its online family tree if exists.

We hope that the Cross-Database feature will help you find a lot of new ancestors!