Help:Basic Searches

What is the Wiki?
The FamilySearch Research Wiki is a website where the community can write and update research advice for any locality. For more details, please click here.

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 making Wiki searches more efficient. For additional information, see also Search Tips and Advanced Search.

How Search Works
The search box allows users to type terms, and the Wiki search engine locates those terms in Wiki article headings and titles, and in the body of an article. While the search engine searches for all terms typed into the search box, it may not locate all of the terms together in an article. Also, those articles containing the terms 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.


 * 1) Locate the "search box." The search box is in a central location on the main page, or is located in the navigation bar on other pages.
 * 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. The articles listed on the results page include the relevance percentage, the number of times the word(s) appear on the page, and the time and date the article was last modified.
 * 5) Shown below, the search results list also includes a numbered list at the top of the page. This indicates that the search results returned several pages of results. To see more results than those shown on the first page of the search results, click on one of the page numbers.[[Image:SearchResults.png|frame|center]]
 * 6) Locate the title of the article you want to read. Note that: * Article titles will always be at the top of the page. * Text that is inside articles and that may match your request will always be at the bottom of the page.
 * 7) Click on the title of the article you want to read. If after clicking on the title, you determine that another article will better match your search criteria, click the back button on your Internet browser to return to the list of search results and select another article.

Exact Match Searches
Two buttons appear 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 find. 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: (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. Similar titles will likely appear in the results list as a close but not an exact match.) (b) Text that appears in the body of an article and that may match your search will always be at the bottom of the page.
 * 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.