Searching for Families

The Find drop-down menu/Search Families link provides a similar interface as searching for people and the tips below are virtually a repeat of what is there. A "family" does not imply that they are married or even in a relationship - the terms "father" and "mother" are used to allow for all possibilities, even same-sex relationships.

Each of the search categories provides several options (contains, equals, etc.) - and they are not all the same:

1. Names have the following options - be aware that when you search you will be using a combination of these for various name types:

• The first four are self-explanatory.
• "exists" does not require that you type anything in the box and will list all names with anything in them, and its opposite "does not exist" lists all with nothing in that name field
• "soundex" and "metaphone" are different ways of searching for names with variant spellings - see Not sure how the name is spelt

2. Places have the same options as names without the soundex and metaphone options.

3. Year searches have the following options:

These are self explanatory. Note that these searches deal only with the year of birth, death, etc. If you want to search for a precise date you must use the Find > Anniversaries function.

4. Other Search Criteria lists other marriage/family events in addition to the basic ones set out at the top of the search page.

5. Join with gives you the option of choosing AND (all your criteria must be in each result) or OR (results include anyone with any of your criteria). For example, if you wanted to search for people born OR died in Cairns, your would enter "Cairns" in the place for Birth and Death and select Join with: OR. Choosing AND will result in a list of people born AND died in Cairns.