This tutorial shows how to put the search capabilities of the federated search engine to work. You must remember that this federated search engine is an exploratory tool whose effectiveness is dependent on the search engines associated with each database. So, it is important to begin a search using a simple query: a family name, for example. According to number of results, you will be able to refine your search or go to the sites where the relevant information was found and use the search tools on those sites.

The federated search engine uses a search language close to what Internet users are familiar with. You can enter a few search terms and consult the results immediately. For more targeted searches, select specific sources (databases).

Finally, the federated search engine offers an interface in two languages. Click on the English or Français tabs to go from one to the other. However, the language change will bring you back to the simple search screen and will erase all the information that you entered and selections that you made.

Basic advice

Prepare your search by clarifying the objectives and search parameters.

• Keywords
  
  A search is generally defined using one or more keywords (terms). An already installed dictionary of terms will indicate, if applicable, the most common spelling variations for keywords that you entered in order to broaden your search.
  
  
• Sources
  
  The sources are grouped by territories (country, federal or provincial government). Select the ones that best suit your needs (for descriptions, click on the Sources tab). You can choose one or more sources and one or more territories by checking them. By default, a search applies to all the databases associated with a territory or a country.
  
  To cover a larger geographic area for the query, perform a search in a number of databases covering several areas at the same time.
  
  See Selecting Sources.
  
  
• Advanced search
  
  The advanced search option is to be used with caution in your genealogical search, because the database structures vary tremendously.

General tips to perform a search

Space and operator AND

Although the federated search engine recognizes the space between two words as the Boolean operator AND, it is not sure that the two words spaced like this will be close together in every result. Indeed, the operator AND does not apply to the proximity of the searched words, but only to their presence in a result. Thus, the two words separated by a space can be really far apart from each other in a result.

Phrase search

If you're looking for an expression like church index, use quotation marks, e.g. "church index". The quotation marks tell the search engine of the database(s) selected that the words have to be found together in the order given. This works only for the database search engines that accept quotation marks.

Abbreviation: "Saint" and "Sainte"

For family names and place names beginning with "Saint" or "Sainte," try using "St" and "Saint" without the hyphen. To look for documents on the Saint Louis family, for instance, you should try "Saint Louis" and "St Louis."

Wildcard characters

Some databases allow you to search using various wildcard characters. For instance, to find documents on Callaghan with all possible spellings, you could type "Calla%" or "Calla*."

The asterisk (*) and percentage sign (%) often replace one or more characters, while the question mark (?) and underscore (_) replace only one.

Search methods in various databases

You can use the federated search engine to search many databases at the same time. Results are obtained based on the search method of these databases, all of which run differently. Note their various characteristics and keep them in mind when performing a query:

• Some databases search surnames only; if you type "Thomas Smith," you will then get results only for the surname "Thomas."
• Some databases use the AND operator, while others use OR, which can yield very different results for the same query.
• On some sites, you can search an exact phrase or string of characters; other sites search only by exact phrases.
• Accents (é, è, ê, etc.) and wildcard characters such as "?," "%" or "*" are not recognized by some databases.
• Avoid using the hyphen, since some databases use it to designate the NOT operator.
• Some databases expand searches by retrieving all results that contain the search word with a variant of one letter (for instance, "Wilson" would generate "Wilton," "Nilson" and "Wolson"), translating the term into phonetic codes based on the Soundex algorithm to include spelling variants (for instance, "Gallagher" would generate "Gallaher" and "Galleher") or retrieving all words composed of the same string of characters (for instance, "Rich" would generate "Richards," "Richter" and "Goodrich").

It is therefore important to vary your queries and expand your search. You should also try using only the family name in the simple search first, before adding the given name or place name in the advanced search. Remember that the federated search engine is not a single search engine, but rather a search tool containing many different databases.

Database and source limits

Standardisation of family names and given names in the various databases is not systematic. Due to the poor legibility of many original documents, some information may be incomplete or incorrect. Finally, some entries include only an initial for the given names. You must therefore prepare your search strategy accordingly.