Details About Searching
You can search for individuals in your Family File in many different ways. Following are some examples:
Query by Example
To use the Query by Example method, you fill in one or more pieces of information you want to look for and then indicate how you want to look for them. In the How to Find box, you can search for individuals that match your input exactly, people that start with the information you typed, or have Legacy look anywhere in the field for the information.
Press the Search button on the button bar. (The picture of the large binoculars.)
Make sure you are on the Query by Example tab. If not, click on the tab.
Fill in the information you want to search for. For example, if you want to search for all individuals that have a last name of Anderson, type Anderson in the Given field.
Indicate which genders you want to search for by clicking on Male, Female or Either in the Gender box.
Indicate how to look by clicking on Exact, Starts With or Anywhere in field in the How to Find box.
If you want to create a list of all the individuals that match the search criteria, press the Create List button at the bottom of the form. Or, if you want to display the first match found, press the Find First button. You can then display the next match by pressing the F3 function key.
If you want to get more specific with your search, press the More Detail button near the lower right corner. Additional option buttons appear that give you more control over the search. (For more information, see Query by Example.)
Detailed Search
The Detailed Search form allows you to search for individuals using much stricter criteria. You can use AND and OR modifiers and look for specific types of individuals in specific places.
1. Who To Look For
Select the type of person you want to find. You can search for a Husband, a Wife or an Individual which can either be a Husband or Wife.
2. Field To Look In
You can look in any of the following locations for the information:
- Given Names
- Last Name
- Title
- Name Prefix
- Gender
- Alt Last Name
- Alt Given Name
- Any Field
- Any Place Field
- Any Date Field
- Birth Date
- Birth Place
- Chr Date
- Chr Place
- Death Date
- Death Place
- Burial Date
- Burial Place
- RIN (Record ID Number)
- Ancestral File Num
- Reference Num
- Address
- Cause of Death
- Living Flag
- Notes
- Reference Notes
- Source Notes
- Research Notes
- Picture/Sound Caption
- Picture/Sound Descrip
- Marriage Date
- Marriage Place
- Number of Spouses
- Number of Children
- Number of Parents
- LDS Baptism Temple
- LDS Seal Parents Temple
- LDS Bapt Date
- LDS Endow Date
- LDS SP Date
- LDS SS Date
- LDS Temple
- Modified Date/Time
- Imported Date/Time
- Tags
3. How To Compare
You can search by using Equal To, Not Equal To, Before, After, Contains, Starts With, Sounds Like and Wildcard. (Some types of searches do not include all these search methods.) None of the searches are case sensitive; upper and lower case letters always match.
- Equal To: Whatever you enter will be matched letter-for-letter.
- Not Equal To: Matches will be found for everything except what you enter.
- Before and After: Used for finding dates.
- Contains: Looks through the entire field to see if what you typed is found anywhere within it.
- Starts With: Matches fields that begin with what you entered.
- Sounds Like: Used to find surnames that sound like the name you entered. Everything is converted to standard Soundex codes before comparing.
- Wildcard: Used to provide pattern matching, like Dav* or Berd?n.
4. What To Look For
Type in the information you want to find, or select the item from the drop-down list box.
Adding Search Criteria
You can specify up to three different conditions to search for. To enable the next condition, check the Second then Third Condition box, choose AND or OR and fill in the search fields.
Using AND and OR
If you select the AND option for a search condition, both of the search comparisons must be true in order for the individual to be selected. For example:
Husband, Last Name, Equal To, Johnson
AND
Husband, Living, Equal To, YES
displays all individuals who are Male, with a last name of Johnson and are still Living.
When you select the OR option, only one or the other (or both) of the search comparisons need be true to select the individual. For example:
Individual, Title, Equal To, Duke
OR
Individual, Title, Equal To, Duchess
will display all individuals, either male or female, that have either a title of Duke or Duchess.
If you use three search conditions, the search conditions are done in two stages. First, conditions one and two are combined using AND or OR, then, if this first comparison is true, the third condition is combined using its AND or OR. If the final result is true, the individual is displayed.
6. Press Find First or Create List to begin the search.
After specifying a search criteria, using one of the three search methods, you can either display the individuals found one at a time or in a list format. To display the records one at a time, press the Find First button. To create a list containing all the individuals that match the search criteria, press the Create List button.
Miscellaneous Searches
You can do other special purpose searches from the Miscellaneous Searches tab.
Dealing with the Current Individual:
Family: Finds the current individual, all spouses and all their children.
Ancestors: Finds the current individual, all spouses and all ancestors, their siblings and their spouses.
Descendants: Finds the current individual, all spouses, and all descendants and their spouses.
Oldest Direct-Line Generation: Finds all the individuals that are in the oldest ancestor generation. This could be one person or many. For example, if the ancestors go back 10 generations and there are five individuals in that generation, those five will be found. If it goes back 11 generations and there is only one person, that individual will be the only person found.
Youngest Direct-Line Generation: Finds all the individuals that are in the youngest descendant generation.
Direct-Line Ancestors with no Parents: Finds all the ancestors of the current individual that have no mother and father linked to them. In other words, the ends of all the ancestor lines.
Direct-Line Descendants with no Children: Finds all the descendants of the current individual that do not have any children. In other words, the ends of all the descendant lines.
Dealing with the Entire Family File:
Linked Individuals with no Children: Finds all individuals that are linked to someone else, either a spouse or a parent, but have no children linked to them.
Linked Individuals with no Parents: Finds all individuals that are linked to someone else, either a spouse or a child, but have no parent linked to them.
Unlinked Individuals: Finds all individuals that are not linked to anyone.
All Records with Bad Dates: Finds all individuals that have an unrecognized date anywhere in their information. (These can happen from ignored warning and imports.)