How to use place filters to find who you are looking for

When you choose a place from the type ahead, this allows us to not only quickly identify that place in our record sets, but it also lets us make use of other useful information that we know about that place. If it’s a county, we know what state it is in and we know what the adjacent counties are.

So if you were to choose Appomattox County, Virginia, USA as a birth location, we know it is in Virginia and the counties adjacent to Appomattox are Amherst, Nelson, Buckingham, Prince Edward, Charlotte, and Campbell. And we know the states adjacent to Virginia, USA are Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucy, Tennessee and North Carolina. This allows us to create place filters that will enhance your search.

So once you choose Appomattox County, Virginia, USA, you will not only have the default settings and exact match available to you, you’ll be able to search Appomattox County and any adjacent county. Or restrict your searches to records that at least have birth locations in Virginia. Or Virginia and the adjacent states.

So how do place filters work

Let’s say you choose Oakland, Alameda, California, USA as a birth location.. You will see the following filters under the birth location search box:

You know the person you are searching for was born in Oakland, Alameda, California, USA, so you apply the filter "Restrict to this place exactly".

This choice means the record must have exactly the same place, as the place you choose. If you have chosen Oakland, Alameda, California, USA for a birth place, but the record has a birth place of Alameda, California, USA then the record will not be included in your result set. So if you aren’t finding what you are looking for, you might try selecting “Restrict to this county" or “Restrict to this county/adjacent counties".

Just because you know where something happened, doesn’t mean that is where it was recorded or how it was recorded in the record.

How each filter works

Default settings

If you choose default settings, there will be no filter applied. Records that match exactly what you chose get the most points; records that partially match the location you choose get some points, records that are adjacent to your chosen location get fewer points and if there is no match, no points.

These points are then added to other points we gave this record based on the information you gave us and then they are used to rank that records against other records in your result set.

If you choose this, then the record must have exactly the same place, as the place you choose. If you have chosen Oakland, Alameda, California, USA for a birth place, but the record has a birth place of Alameda, California, USA then the record will not be included in your result set.

If you choose “Restrict to this county", and you have chosen Oakland, Alameda, California, USA for a birth place, and the record has a birth place of “Alameda, California, USA" this will be considered a match, and the record can be included in the result set.

If the record had Alameda, California, USA as the location, it would also be included, because you chose to restrict at the county level. But because it’s not an exact match, this result would not rank as high in your result set.

Sometimes the closest court house was in the next county, not in the county where your ancestor resided, and they may have recorded an event there. By choosing this option, we not only will match the county you’ve given us, but the counties that are currently adjacent to it. And state lines do not make a difference here. If the county is adjacent, we search it and we match it.

This works just like restrict to this county, except at the state level. If you have chosen Oakland, Alameda, California, USA for a birth location, we will match any record that has a birth location in California. However, if the county or city matches, the result will appear higher in the result list.

This works like the county/adjacent county filter except at the state level.

This works like the county or state filter, except at the country level.

Filters are based upon the location you have chosen. If you choose a county in England, we will allow you to filter at the county, country or the UK level. Filters are adjusted to match the country you are in.

Default First Name Settings

When you use default settings, we look through every first name we have recorded in our more than 29,000 data collections, and pull out any record where the first name is:

• Exactly what you typed
• A phonetic match of what you typed
• A first name which has a similar meaning or spelling as the one you typed
• An initial that matches the name you typed
• We may also return records that do not match the first name you typed in as described in this list, but strongly match other criteria

These records are also evaluated against the other criteria that you have given us, and are ordered based on how well all the elements in that record match your search.

First Name Search Options

Exact Matches: Records that contain a first name that is exactly what you typed in will appear in your results.

Phonetic Variations: There are other name matching algorithms that we can use to help identify records to consider for your results. If you choose phonetic, we will identify appropriate algorithms that apply to specific data collections and if a record has one of those names, we will use it as a possible record for your results set.

Similar Variations: There are alternates and spelling variations that are commonly used, such as Will for William. If you choose this option we will look for records with these alternates and consider them as possible results for you to look at.

Initial Variations: Sometimes in records our ancestors were identified with just their first initials, or the initials of their given and middle names. By including this option, you allow us to examine and possibly include records that just have initials in the first name. So if you enter Mary, we will look at records that have M as the first name.

Other tips you might find useful

Wildcards: You can also use the wildcards * and ? in your name searches. * (or asterisk) will match any number of characters and ? will match only one character. You may use the * and ? anywhere in your search, but you must have at least 3 letters. So *own is a legal search, but *wn is not.

If you type in Ann*, this will match names such as Ann, Anne, Anna, or Annabelle. And if you type in Ann?, this will match names such as Anne or Anna but not Ann or Annabelle. If you use Ann?* you will match Anne, Anna or Annabelle, because there must be at least one character after Ann.

You can use wild cards with exact matches. If you choose the Soundex, phonetic or similar options and use wild cards, then we will only apply the wild cards to the exact matches.

If you are searching for the name Sally, and would like to use wildcards and some of the other search options, you could try: Sal*, Sally

Default Last Name Settings

When you use default settings, we look through every last name we have recorded in our more than 29,000 data collections, and pull out any record where the last name is:

• Exactly what you typed
• A phonetic algorithm match of what you typed
• A similar meaning or spelling to the one you typed

These records are also evaluated against the other criteria that you have given us, and are ordered based on how well all the elements in that record match your search. We no longer include Soundex matches on your default searches.

Last Name Search Options

Exact Matches: Records that contain a last name that is exactly what you typed in will appear in your results.

Soundex Variations: Soundex is a common algorithm used to generate alternate spellings of a surname. If you choose this option, any record that contains one of the Soundex variations for a surname might appear in your results.

Phonetic Variations: There are other name matching algorithms that we can use to help identify records to consider for your results. If you choose phonetic, we will identify appropriate algorithms that apply to specific data collections and if a record has one of those names, we will use it as a possible record for your results set. For example, if you are prioritizing Jewish Collections first, we would choose the Daitch-Mokotoff phonetic algorithm.

Similar Variations: There are alternates and spelling variations that are commonly used such as Hashe for Hash. If you choose this option we will look for records with these alternates and consider them as possible results for you to look at.

Other tips you might find useful

Wildcards: You can also use the wildcards * and ? in your name searches. * (or asterisk) will match any number of characters and ? will match only one character. You may use the * and ? anywhere in your search, but you must have at least 3 letters. So *own is a legal search, but *wn is not. You might try searching for Smith as Sm?th, which would match Smith or Smyth, or you might try Sm?th*, which would also match Smythe.

You can use wild cards with exact matches. If you choose the Soundex, phonetic or similar options and use wild cards, then we will only apply the wild cards to the exact matches.

If you are searching for the name Williams, and would like to use wildcards and some of the other search options, you could try: Wil*am*, Williams