Tips for Searching the Database
| The objective is to narrow down
your search to a small number of records, rather than scrolling through
pages and pages of records.
To scroll up and down a multi-page display,
use the You can also change the order of the selected records by highlighting a column heading and clicking once to sort the records from A first (descending order) or click again to sort the records from Z first (ascending order). For example, entering taylor in the Quick Search box will display multiple pages of records, and if you highlight/click the Forenames column heading, the records will be re-sorted to display from Aaron to Zylvia. This feature can also be used effectively with date columns, where you may want to see the entries with the latest Paper Date first, for example. |
| Quick Search | Enter a name, location, etc | Will display all
records where the requested characters appear in ANY
field. For example, enter HALL - will also display HALLiwell, SHALLcrass, MarsHALL, etc, and these may appear as Last Name, Forenames, Maiden Name, Location, Comments. Note that entering names that are also locations (such as HAMILTON) will generate a large number of records. Useful for finding a record where the name
is relatively rare, and thus there is likely to be a small number of
matches. |
| Filters | Click
the |
Used for the targeting
of search criteria on a field by field basis to ensure the number of
matches to be displayed is small.
You can enter the filtering criteria required for a single field or for multiple fields. For example, Last Name EQUAL Smith, AND
Forenames EQUAL John Henry, will display any records that match these
criteria EXACTLY. If you do not know the full name (e.g. you
think it was Kath, but don't know if it was Kathleen or Katherine/Kathryn)
then use the search as Forenames LIKE and %kath% which will display all
records with kath anywhere - such as Joan Katherine,
Kathy, Katharine Emily, etc. Selections by date are also possible using
the GREATER THAN and LESS THAN operators to mean "later than" or "prior
to" a specified date. Note the specified date has to use the
Year-Month-Day (YYYY-MM-DD) format. Thus, selecting Death Date and
GREATER THAN 2004-06-12 AND LESS THAN 2004-06-20 will show all entries
where Death Date is 13 to 19 June 2004. If this is added (AND)
to a filter selection of Last Name EQUAL smith, then all Smith records
where the Death Date is 13 to 19 June 2004 will be
displayed. |
| Wild Card Characters | The % character | Means "include any
characters in the field that follow or precede the %
character". For example, selecting Surname and LIKE and entering John% in the filter will include John, Johns, Johnson, Johnsson, Johnston, Johnstone, etc in the records displayed. Similarly, including %John% in the filter for Forenames will display records with Forenames with John in the record - Henry John, William Johnson, John David, Johnson Henry, etc. Useful when the correct spelling is not known.
|
| The underscore character (_) |
Means "include any character in this position in the field". For example, selectingSurname and LIKE and entering Ols_n will mean that Olsen and Olson will be displayed.
| |
| They can be used
together. For example, selecting LIKE and entering Gl_n% will mean
that Glen, Glenda, Glenn, Glenys, Glyn, Glynn, etc will be
displayed. | ||
| Remove the Filter | Click the
|
All filter criteria will be cleared and the default display will return - that is, the first X records in the database table. |