Help:Search for an article or topic

Using the Search box
Use this search to find information about any Wiki topic you are interested in. You do not need to know exact titles or topic names.


 * 1) In the Search box in the top left corner of the Wiki page, enter the key words that describe the information you are looking for. For example, enter United States census or New York City birth records.
 * 2) Click the Search button. In the list of search results, see the following: (a) Article titles will always be at the top of the page. (b) Text that is inside articles and that may match your request will always be at the bottom of the page.
 * 3) Click any title you would like to see.
 * 4) To see more search results, click on a number at the bottom of the page to move forward or backward from page to page.

Using the Exact Match box
Use this search when you know an exact title or phrase you want to find.


 * 1) In the Exact Match box in the top left corner of the Wiki page, enter the exact title or phrase you want to find. For example, enter Finding a Person in the 1930 Census (Even Without An Index) or enter Families in British India Society.
 * 2) Click the Search button. In the list of search results, see the following: (a) Article titles will always be at the top of the page. (If you did not type the title exactly as it appears, including the spelling, punctuation, and capitalization, a message will tell you that no match was found. But a very similar title will likely be in the results list as a close, but not exact match.) (b) Text that is inside articles and that may match your request will always be at the bottom of the page.
 * 3) Click any title you would like to see.
 * 4) To see more search results, click on a number at the bottom of the page to move forward or backward from page to page.

Search Tips

 * Searching the FamilySearch Wiki is relatively simple. Your success in finding what you want will probably be be dependant on knowing what title the article was given. A similar example would be trying to find out how to spell a word by looking in the dictionary. If you don't know how to spell it in the first place, finding the word might be difficult.
 * In the wiki there are a couple tricks you can use to finding articles on a given subject, without requiring you to know what the articles were titled. The first trick is the category or categories assigned to the article. At the bottom of every article is a category. When you click on the catagory name, the system takes you to a screen that lists all the articles in the wiki that have the same category. Once you find an article this is related to something you are interested in, finding other similar articles will be easier if you choose to look at the category view.