Help:Basic Searches

Anyone may search for articles in the FamilySearch Research Wiki. Users do not need to be registered to do this. This article will provide some helpful hints on efficiently searching the Wiki.

How Search Works

 * Keywords, not phrases, are used to search the wiki.
 * Search the FamilySearch Wiki in a manner similar to Wikipedia, not Google or Yahoo.
 * Enter the place, subject, record type or the name of the article in the search box.

The FamilySearch Wiki search engine locates those keywords in Wiki article headings, titles, and in the body of the article. The resulting articles may contain one or all of the keywords searched. Articles containing the keywords many times throughout the article will rank higher in the search results than those that only contain the search terms once or twice.

Basic Searches
Use the following steps to search for articles or topics in the Wiki. For guided instruction, see the Basic Search demo.)


 * 1) Locate the "search box."
 * 2) Type keywords, search terms, or the title of the article you want to find into the search box. You do not have to enter the exact title of the article. For example, you may type "United States census" or "New York City birth records."
 * 3) Click the Search button.
 * 4) After clicking the Search button, a list of search results will appear.
 * 5) Shown below, the number of results is displayed for the search. To see more results than those shown on the first page, click on Next or 20, 50, 100, 250 or 500.[[Image:Search results.jpg|frame|center]]

Locate the title of the article you want to read and click on it.

To return to the previous page and select another article, click the back button on your Internet browser.

Note that:


 * Results with keywords in the Article Titles will always be listed first.
 * Results with keywords in the body of the article will always be listed next.

Exact Match Searches
There are two buttons below the search box: the Search button, and the Exact Match button. Use the Exact Match button when you know an exact title or phrase you want to find. This can be especially helpful when the normal search returns too many results.


 * 1) In the search box, enter the exact title or phrase you want to search. For example, enter Finding a Person in the 1930 Census (Even Without An Index) or enter Families in British India Society 1600 to 1947
 * 2) Click the Exact Match button. In the list of search results, see the following:
 * 3) Click on the title of the article you would like to read.
 * 4) As shown above, to see more search results, click on another page to see additional search results.

Remember:


 * Results with keywords in the Article Titles will always be listed first.
 * Results with keywords in the body of the article will be listed next.