Entering Place Names In Family Tree - I learned something today.

Gordon Collett

I never knew this and never thought to try it out but was shown today that we can use wild cards in searching for place names in the Places database and when entering place names in Family Tree.

If I enter Bergen in a Family Tree place field, I do get what I expect, that is, only place names spelled exactly that way:

However, what if I am not sure of my spelling? If I misspell it as Bergan, I don't get my place:

But there is a hidden feature! We can use wildcards.

? means replace one letter:

Scrolling down, I find the additional options for places:

* means replace a string of letters:

~ means "do a fuzzy search."

I was told works best if the place name has at least five letters:

Maybe everyone knows this and I just missed the memo. But it was fun enough for me to hear about that I though I would pass this on.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

I'd never heard of the fuzzy search option. I wonder: does it also work in Search - Records? Off to experiment...

Julia Szent-Györgyi

The answer is that Search - Records can't make up its mind about the tilde. The tilde works in the placename fields for generating the list, but if you select the orange text, it gives an error message and refuses to search:

Input cannot contain the following characters: < > ~ ` + = $ % # ^ : & | ( ) { } [ ] \

(In the name fields, it just gives the error message and refuses to search.)

Paul W

The problem in trying to replicate at present is that one never knows which alternative search option is going to appear when logging on to Family Tree.

For example, I have just logged on and have the search fields without the drop-down list - i.e., how the page always appeared until fairly recently. Using the "old" page (via the FamilySearch link on a Details page) this is what I see:

So, it appears the "fuzzy search" option does not work without the Place fields having the drop-down version.

Off to test outside of Family Tree (i.e., in Search, etc.) and will update later!

Paul W

Firstly, same issue using FIND:

Now, using https://www.familysearch.org/search/:

This is using Firefox, so I'll now try Chrome (although I don't think the browser is relevant here) and also try to log in again later, in a "hope" I'll get the new version(s) of the search page.

Some weeks ago, I actually complained about the awkwardness (my experience) in using wildcards when the drop-down menu version presents itself. I'm sure I had difficulty in getting results for multiple locations - i.e., I could not get results that included towns of the same name, wherever the location (of, say, "London") in the world. Until the auto-standardization exercise, this would not really have been an issue, but who knows which London or Bergen a place has been standardized to now? So, wildcards (rather than making a search on the precise, accurate full name of the parish when ones relatives lived) have probably become a very important (if not essential) option when making a search. (Since auto-standardization, my "Richmond, Yorkshire, England" relatives' records might now be found only by searching on all the other "Richmond" locations throughout the globe!)

Paul W

So, here are some examples when using Chrome (browser probably not an issue, though) when the drop-down is available:

Note the difference (from the first screenshot in this post) when checking the "Exact" box:

Obviously, the "logic" of how some of these examples are working can be explained away, but all very interesting, to say the least!