Jennifer - are you using NewSearch or OldSearch? This sounds like NewSearch results to me, which IMO rarely return many near-match results that I would consider relevant, unless they are things I already found that are an exact match (one reason I rarely use it).

If you are NewSearch mode, try switching and see if that helps. Click on "search" in the bar at the top of this page, then "search all records" and on that page, there will be a link (in tiny letters) on the upper right that says "go to Old Search."

Good luck.