Thursday, June 17, 2010

FamilySearch Advanced Search Capabilities

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FamilySearch is gradually adding features to their Beta site at http://fsbeta.familysearch.org. A user can search for records on the FamilySearch Record Search site using the simple search fields on the Beta home page, shown below:




Notice the "Show Advanced" link below the "Death Year" field. If you click on the "Show Advanced" link, you see many more search fields to help you with your search:


The search fields in this Advanced Search page include:

* A check box to "Match all terms exactly"
* First and Middle Names (with an Exact check box)
* Last Name (with an Exact check box)
* Birth Year (with a selection of ranges - plus or minus 0, 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 are available)
* Birth Place (with an Exact check box)
* Death Year (with a selection of ranges - plus or minus 0, 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 are available)
* Death Place (with an Exact check box)
* Residence Year (with a selection of ranges - plus or minus 0, 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 are available)
* Residence Place (with an Exact check box)
* Father first and middle name(s) (with an Exact check box)
* Father last name (with an Exact check box)
* Mother first and middle name(s) (with an Exact check box)
* Mother last name (with an Exact check box)
* Spouse first and middle name(s) (with an Exact check box)
* Spouse last name (with an Exact check box)
* Marriage Year (with a selection of ranges - plus or minus 0, 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 are available)
* Marriage Place (with an Exact check box)

I entered First Name = "benjamin", Last Name = "seaver," Birth Year = 1791 +/- 2 years, Birth Place = "massachusetts" in order to see how the search worked. I checked no Exact Match boxes. The top of the search results looks like this:



There were 1,880 matches for my search terms, including many that were obviously not a Benjamin Seaver born in 1791. There were no matches for my Benjamin Seaver, born 1791 and died 1825 (which I didn't add to the search field). Presumably, that means that FamilySearch has no historical records for this particular Benjamin Seaver.

One of the matches was interesting to me - a match in the Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files. I clicked on that and saw:



The match is a mention of Benjamin Seaver in the Revolutionary War Pension application for Nathaniel Houghton. The link to the record is to www.Footnote.com. The reference to Benjamin Seaver in that record is for the father of Benjamin Seaver (1791-1825), also named Benjamin Seaver, who did serve in the War.

What about the "Exact Match" feature? I clicked on the "Match all terms exactly" back on the Advanced Search screen, and received one match:



While this match in the 1865 Massachusetts State Census is for a Benjamin Seaver, it is not the one born in 1791. It is for his grandson, born in 1854. The birth year, or age, for this person apparently was not indexed for the 1865 Massachusetts State Census on the FamilySearch Record Search site.

At the bottom of the screen above is a link for "Trees." If Benjamin Seaver had been included in a Family Tree available on the FamilySearch Beta site, then it would have been listed. I will look at the current Trees feature in the next post.



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