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Archiver > NCBERTIE > 2003-06 > 1056377185


From: "KHarrison" <>
Subject: [NCBERTIE] Wildcard searching tips
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 09:06:25 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)



>From The Ancestry Daily News, 23 June 2003

Fast Fact:
Wildcard Searches at Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com offers wildcard searching capability in any of our online
databases. Wildcards are special symbols that are used in searching to
represent some number of unknown letters in a word. Ancestry.com utilizes
both the asterisk (*) and the question mark (?).
Wildcards can be effective query tools if you are searching for words or
names with alternate spellings, but don't wish to view all the extra hits
that Soundex searching can create. You can also use wildcards to view all
words that begin with the same stem. For example, a search for "fran*" will
return hits on words like Fran, Franny, Frank, Frannie, or Frankie.
Other helpful wildcard searching examples include the following:
--- If you want to search for names that differ only by one letter use the
question mark (?) wildcard. A search for "Johns?n" will return both Johnsen
and Johnson.
--- You can search alternate spellings with the asterisk (*), which
represents 0 to 5 unknown characters. The query "Johann*" will search for
Johann and Johannes. A query for "Smel*er" will search for Smeltzer and
Smelzer, among others.
Due to the nature and size of the data being searched and the need to
deliver speedy search results, the use of wildcards is restricted to
keywords and names that have the first three letters specified.
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