One important thing to keep in mind when researching PERSI is that this is an index of the sources and PERSI is indexed by article titles, not names. So, unless your ancestor had an article written about him/her, doing a general surname search won’t likely bring up any results that are specific to your ancestor.
You just need to remember that the strategy isn’t to find a name with PERSI, the strategy is locating the periodical your ancestor may be included in , so location and time period are a great way to begin your searches.
Since PERSI is always being updated, even if you’ve searched it before, it’s worth searching again, and again, and again, and again. Also, as you uncover more clues to your family history PERSI can help you uncover even more with additional related searches.
Great tips to help find ancestors in PERSI at the history blog from Findmypast