As far as I can see iot is not possible to search by birth date in the database. If it is can you pl
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Answers
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Paul said: Checking the "Exact searching box" (as illustrated below) will help, though it will not cut-out all births not specifically for that year. Also, limiting your search to a particular place and exact-checking the person's first & last names will considerably reduce your results. However, you have to be careful with this as if, for example, a name was spelled incorrectly in the original record, it would not be shown if you had checked the box for exact matches only.
Try using different search criteria (e.g. with or without using the "exact match" options) to see the different number of results you will be presented with. Also, use of the filters on the left side of the page narrows the results, too.
See https://www.familysearch.org/search/r... (you will have to scroll through the 5 pages) relating to the screenshot below.
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Tom Huber said: First, welcome to the community support forum for FamilySearch. FamilySearch personnel read every discussion thread and may or may not respond as their time permits. We all share an active interest in using the resources of this site and as users, we have various levels of knowledge and experience and do our best to help each other with concerns, issues, and/or questions.
A lot depends upon what you are searching.
A specific birth date will contain day, month, and year. By searching on something that precise (as an exact type of search), there is a strong possibility that even though the date appears in the record, it will not be found due to the precise method of searching.
That's not a bad idea for searching the massive tree (using the Find search function), but the birth date in Vitals may or may not be accurately recorded. I have an aunt who gave me her date of birth (which was validated by her Social Security record) and her children all insisted it was one day later. They were adamant about the date, so it is entirely possible that searching on an exact date would not pick up the actual record you are/were looking for.
When it comes to historical records, there is another factor and that is whether or not the date is a birth date or some other birth-related event (such as Christening). The Rhode Island records, for instance, often list the same family twice, but the dates are all off by two or three days. That's because the birth was recorded and then rerecorded as the Christening event. The records do not distinguish between the two (using Arnold's Vital Record of Rhode Island: 1636–1850), but after working with the various volumes in the 1980s, I came recognize what was going on.
The next thing to consider is that for the most part, birth records are under tighter control, depending upon the jurisdiction. Some are less restrictive, such as those for Texas, where I found my living niece and two nephews listed. Others have a restriction of no information for 100 years. The U.S. Federal Census records are not avalialbe until 72 years have passed since the year of the enumeration.
In the massive tree (FamilySearch FamilyTree), there should be no records available for living persons, due to laws of privacy. If I enter information about a living relative, it is not publicly available, but only I, who created the record) can see it.
Getting to the specifics, as far as I can tell, a user cannot restrict record searches to a specific month, day, and year. In many cases, searches can be narrowed to a year, but it is expressed as a year range (from (year) to (year), and does not have the "exact" option attached to the date.0 -
Paul said: Sorry, this was the screenshot I meant to illustrate (extract of page 1 of 5 of the pages produced for the total 87 search results found at https://www.familysearch.org/search/r...)
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Paul said: Please see screenshot below - the above is for the last page of the full results, instead of the first page I had intended to illustrate.0
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Stewart Millar said: I have found the best workaround for not having an exact date search - is to put the date (year) range required - even just for one year, say 1843 to 1843 . . . as always with a search, carefully minimise the other data matches you need to use . . . the results will be ordered with the records that match the date range at the top of the results . . . . followed by thousands of other reuslts that match your other criteria irrespective of the year range.0
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Paul said: Following what Stewart has explained, I carried out a further search for a John Briggs (exact match on name), and entered 1857-1857 in the Birth Year fields, but without entering a place name, or checking the box alongside the Birthplace field.
I received 5,390 results but the ones showing an 1857 birth were all prioritised. That is, they appeared as 1-181 is the list of results, followed by the other 5,000+ records that did not specifically mention an 1857 birth.
A similar exercise involving inputting a specific Birthplace, and this time checking the box alongside, produced 50 results, 1-42 being for records showing an 1857 birth year.0 -
Lee Frances Merritt said: I'm sorry - I use that but it is not significantly helpful!!!0
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Lee Frances Merritt said: one doesn't need to have a specific date but being able to limit the search to a specific range would be most helpful. So instead of getting things from 1600 to 1900 I could get something in say the 1800's or just the 1900's.0
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Stewart Millar said: Lee,
Perhaps you missed my contribution - further down the page + Paul's later example . . . which demonstartes that a search by date range gives priority to the date range in the list of results . . . so there may be 5,000+ results . . . but the requested date range results will all be at the top of the results - so you only need to read from the top of the list until the date range is exceeded.0 -
Tom Huber said: Use the date range (both fields) to set this up. If you want the 1900s, then the first date would read 1900 and the second 1999.0
This discussion has been closed.