Limiting date range in a search

Stewart Millar said: When you put in a marriage or birth date range - the results of that date range will be listed at the top of the results list . . . so the search may return 10,000 results - but the leading results in the list will give you those matching the date range . . . with which you only need to inspect the list - from the top - until the dates deviate from the date range.

Juli said: Stewart's statement is only correct if date is the only parameter being searched on, which is not allowed, or if the date is the only parameter with any variation in match score -- that is, if every name and place matches the search terms to exactly the same degree. That basically never happens. Instead, the results are ordered according to how well they match all of the search terms. In my experience, the ordering is strongly weighted in favor of the name, meaning that a record that matches the name exactly but has the wrong date is likely to be listed before a record that has the right date but not quite the same name.

You can work around some of the search's shortcomings using the filters, but there are no exact year filters -- if you need things between, say, 1878 and 1883, you're SOL.

Paul said: I generally find I'm able to get around the problem by using the filters provided. Okay, I've had to specify "England" as a place name in the example shown, but checking the "Type" box (see bottom left of screen) has cut out the census and immigration results I had returned in my initial search. If you do want these, too, for (say) a Charles Wrightson born in this period, then don't filter on "Type".

Even FamilySearch employees commenting on this forum have agreed that searching on date is not too easy, but I have found there are workarounds to make for quite acceptable results.

One important thing is to only search on one "vitals" item at a time, however. For example, make sure no marriage data is included on the Search page if you want just birth/christening results. If you make a search from the "person page" (via the FamilySearch icon) you will need to remove any marriage and death detail carried across, or you will get thousands of results. Oh, and check the "Exact match" boxes, too, if you are sure of the name spelling (otherwise, use wildcards).

Note the difference in the number of results produced in using different search methods - including filtering and "exact match" options:

Leonard Poulsen said: Thanks for all of the replies. I've actually done most if not all of the things that have been recommended up to this point and been quite successful. HOWEVER a software enhancement to improve the search engine is in order (in my opinion) and since Family Search has asked for ideas this is one I would like to submit. This is especially true when you have a wife's first name but not her last. Then you need all the help you can get in a robust search engine. The only thing that works better is inspiration.

Thanks again for all the tips!!!!!!!!!!