Why does the placename search not show all matches ?
If I type 'Diocese' into the search box in FamilySearch Places I get just one match
But if I type the same word into anywhere you can enter a place in the Family Tree I get a list
Why do the two searches come up with incomplete and different results ?
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Example - the Diocese of Cashel and Emly (Ireland) should surely show up in any search for 'diocese', or 'cashel', or 'emly', or 'cashel and emly diocese'. But it doesn't.
But I have to type the exact phrase 'Diocese of Cashel and Emly' in order for it to show up
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This is a good question. Perhaps each search engine works a little different. Here are some ways to use the search engine:
Use the following wildcard characters to adjust yoursearch, especially if you are unsure about how a placename is written:
• Enter ? (question mark) to replace any single character.
• Enter * (asterisk) to enable place-names with various endingsto appear.
• Enter a ~ (tilde) at the end of the search term to performa fuzzy search.
• Please note that this fuzzy search capability does not work well forshort strings. If a search term is less than 5 letters, adding “~” will likely not help
Examples:
I hope this helps.
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Thanks for the suggestion, which makes me wonder how on earth is anybody supposed to know about the special meanings of ?, *, and ~ in a search unless it's stated right there where you do the search, possibly via a hint icon ?
(This is a problem with every single search I've ever come across, including Google)
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@kob3203 asked
"... which makes me wonder how on earth is anybody supposed to know about the special meanings of ?, *, and ~ in a search"
I think it's reasonable to hope that people will know about "*" as a wild card. (Note I said, "reasonable to hope" not "reasonable to expect").
I really don't think it makes sense to expect people to understand any others.
Even I, with decades of IT experience don't now remember the others apart from an idea that there is a single character wild card ("?" here but don't ask me how consistent that is).
Furthermore, there is considerable confusion in my head about what use wild cards are when the basic search already has flexibility built in - e.g. "diocese of cashel and emly" brings up not just that exact name but also four variants on "emly". It is virtually impossible to construct a mental model of the search that makes it bring up not just the exact answer but also "emly" but not "cashel"!
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The biggest problem with any/all internet searches appears to be twofold.
(1) There's no globally agreed syntax or mechanism for search functions.
(2) An explanation of the syntax and mechanism for a specific search is never easy to find, and often doesn't even exist.
FamilySearch can do nothing about point (1), but could easily fix point (2) by adding a page explaining the syntax and how to use the search and linking to that page from a help link next to the search box.
Going back to my original puzzlement, if I want to find the Irish Roman Catholic diocese of Cashel and Emly on Google I simply enter three key words, diocese cashel emly, because I'm fairly sure that Google will put results that contain all three words before any that contain only two or one, and I'm also fairly sure that the two placenames only exist in Ireland at least when taken together with the word diocese.
When I use a search that I'm not familiar with, and for which I can find no explanation of the syntax, I assume that it works on the same basis, i.e. return first any results that contain all the words in the query.
Neither the generic FamilySearch place search nor the FamilySearch Places search do this. That's the basic problem I'm talking about.
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Totally agree with you, @kob3203 - your point that "Neither the generic FamilySearch place search nor the FamilySearch Places search do this ..." reflects my "It is virtually impossible to construct a mental model of the search that makes it bring up not just the exact answer but also "emly" but not "cashel"!"
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I really don't know anything about the underlying programming of the Places database search box, but from what I can tell, part of the trouble is that it is not a search box and there is not really a search routine. It really seems to act just as a simple text string matching routine which starts at the beginning of a place name and goes letter by letter. Also, it does look at both the main display name and all the alternate names. And the comparison seems to often stops when it reaches an exact match with either a main or alternate name.
You can see this just by typing slowly in the Place database and watching how the result list shifts. Study it for patterns and you will get a sense of what the underlying routine must be doing.
For example, just type in D.
Since this is a perfect match for one of the alternate names for Germany and this is apparently the only place name that is exactly "D" in the database, only two results are listed.
Add an E and you get more results:
These are all places with exactly DE as an abbreviation or a full name.
Toss on a third letter and you do start getting places that just start with those three letters.
This behavior is what makes me think there is no searching, in terms of what we are used to with Google and such, going on at all, just text string matching.
If any programmers for the database would like to chime in here and explain the actual routine, I would find that very fascinating to learn.
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@Gordon Collett said
" ... This behavior is what makes me think there is no searching, in terms of what we are used to with Google and such, going on at all, just text string matching ..."
I'm sure that string matching is in there while there's a bit more as well. If you remember we found that an input placename "ZZZ, YYY, XXX" matched a placename of "XXX, YYY, ZZZ" so there must be a bit of slicing and dicing at the commas.
If you try finding placenames in Google Maps, there are oddities that appear there, so let's not imagine all other mapping facilities are fine - I remember once, in another place, we couldn't work out why Google Maps had mapped one placename in Gloucestershire to somewhere in that county but miles away from the village in question. Then I zoomed in and realised that Google Maps had found a street name with the same name as the target village. 🤔
Personally, my pet peeve is when the automatic background placename standardisation comes up with a different answer to the online query. Why doesn't it come up with the one at the top of the online list???? Or was it at the top once - years ago?
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