User:Nolaneclark/sandbox

Decide Whether to Search All Records or Particular Collections

 * Searching within a particular collection narrows the search. For example, if you are looking for a death record for Arizona, you can go to the Collection for Arizona Deaths.
 * Searching within all records maximizes the probability of finding the person you seek, but may yield a vast number of records.

How to Select Specific Collections

 * From the main search window, you can browse by location. For example, you can select USA, Canada and Mexico.  From this screen, you can narrow the search to the United States.
 * Alternatively, you can select All Record Collections. Within this screen, you can scroll down and see what collections are available.

Choosing Between Basic Search and Advanced Search

 * Advanced Search should be used to search for an individual based on the identify of that person's spouse or parents.
 * Advanced Search should be used if you are looking for a particular event relating to a person. The event choices are any, birth, marriage, residence, death and other.
 * Basic Search provides the broadest search; it will examine all historical records looking for the name of the person entered, as narrowed by the place and time periods selected.

Alternative Name Searches

 * For the given name, you can search for a single given name, multiple given names or no given names.
 * You can search by given name only or by surname only. This can be useful to locate persons with unusual given names or surnames.
 * You can make wildcard searches, substituting an * or __ in place of one or more letters. In order to use wildcards, you must use at least three letters.  For example, one could search for w*lb*n to find a surname that might be spelled Wilborn, Willborn, Welborn, Wilburn, Wilbourne, Welbourne, etc.