Ranked search results are returned in order of relevance.

Needles, Haystacks, and Ranked Search at Ancestry.com

Ranked Search automatically returns alternate spellings and abbreviations for your ancestor's name(s). An exact name match is the closest match, and therefore the most relevant, followed by name matches based on typographical, cultural, and phonetic closeness. Additionally, Ranked Search uses chronological closeness as a factor in determining the relevance of date matches.

What's Next?
Plans for subsequent versions of Ranked Search include allowing users to select which elements of their searches they?d like to make match exactly while the others are matched in descending order of relevance, adding an advanced search with more search fields that can be entered, and adding geographical closeness as a factor in determining the relevance of location matches.

using estimated dates is also recomended

Kendall Hulet is a product manager for MyFamily.com, overseeing the Search user experience. He has written several articles for academic journals that relate to Internet business practices. President of BoardGameRatings.com