Marriages Search Builder

Search Builder

The Search Builder field is reserved for power users to construct advanced searches on any marriage record field with elements such as boolean operators and wildcards.

The format for each clause follows this syntax: <field_name>:"<value>"
(note the field and values are separated with a colon. Values are enclosed in quotes.)

For example, to search for records that contain either a groom with either "Arnstein" or "Austin" for family members who had Anglicised their surname, you would enter this in the search builder field:

groom_surname:"Arnstein" OR groom_surname:"Austin"

To search for a female Abraham or Abrahams and age in her 20s:

bride_surname:"abraham*" AND bride_age:"2?"

You may view a list of all searchable marriage fields in a table below.

Wildcards

Wildcards can be used in text search fields, but not as the first character.

To perform a single character wildcard search use the "?" symbol, e.g. "Lev?" will find Levi, Levy and any other name beginning with "Lev" with four characters, but won't find "Levey".

The multiple character wildcard * (asterisk) looks for any number of characters (or none) within the nominated text. "Lev*y" will find Levy and Levey. "S*war* " will find many variations of the name including Swartz, Schwartz, Schwarcz, Szwarc. "Davi*s" will find both Davis and Davies as well as Davidowits. "Lev*" will find any name beginning with "Lev", eg Levine, Levinstein, etc, as well as Levy, Levi and Levey.

The Search Builder could be used to find all three common variations of Levy without inclusion of extraneous names such as Levine

(surname:"lev?" OR surname:"levey") AND congregation:'Hobart'

(Note the use of brackets to group boolean criteria)

All Marriage Fields