Improve/Correct 'exact' search engine matching

LDS Search Test

Searching for persons born in Louisiana, using the location "United States" "Louisiana", I am presented with results from persons in Califiornia born in "L.A."

This is probably because Louisiana has an alternate name 'LA' to match its abbreviation,

However, the results are not valid, and this exemplifies a problem with the search engine which is apparently stripping non-alphabetical characters from source data before comparison.

Hence "Louisiana" has an alternate name "LA" and thus = "L.A." even in an exact search.

This is not correct.

If the user chooses an exact match, then the query matching process should be comparing the raw untouched source data with the criterion.

If I want to taste wines, I want to taste what is in the bottle, not some filtered and processed version that has had all the distinguishing characteristics removed,

dontiknowyou

Searching for persons born in Louisiana, using the location "United States" "Louisiana", I am presented with results from persons in Califiornia born in "L.A."

This is Historical Records Search, not Find, correct?

How are you searching on United States, then Louisiana? Or are you using Filters?

LDS Search Test

@dontiknowyou Nothing special. "New Search" More Options, Location: Set Country and State. Then under Birth Event enter Louisiana as well. Results will show records from places other than Louisiana.

dontiknowyou

Right. That's an historical records search.

First observation: As far as I have seen, the exact matching feature does not apply to filters, only to initial search terms.

Second observation: FamilySearch often severely annoys me in that exact matching usually (but not always?!) matches on records with ambiguous or missing data, rather than excluding those records. Exact isn't very exact.

As I have mentioned before in other topics, these issues are why I have increasingly stopped using historical record searches except for very preliminary scouting. I now work primarily from within FamilyTree.

Kind of an aside: Check the collection those "L.A." records are in; should they have been unambiguously indexed as Los Angeles, or is there legitimate room for uncertainty about what "L.A." refers to?

Paul W

@LDS Search Test

I just tried "test"search and found all the results I received do appear to relate to individuals born in Louisiana, even where the birthplace has been abbreviated to "La".

See https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?exactSearching=true&q.birthLikeDate.from=1890&q.birthLikeDate.to=1895&q.birthLikePlace=louisiana&q.birthLikePlace.exact=on&q.givenName=william&q.givenName.exact=on&q.surname=turner&q.surname.exact=on.

Of course, I'm not denying other "test" searches (or "real" ones!) will include L.A., California results - just that this was not my experience here, using the criteria I applied.

LDS Search Test

@Paul W Perhaps the changes in the wind have already blown through ...