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HEADER AREA: SEARCH BOX
This Search box is small but powerful. You can have PhpGedView search almost anything for you. When you click the > or Search button, you will be linked to the Search page to see the results of your search. You will find extensive help about searching options on the Search page.



SEARCH MENU
The Search page is a more powerful version of the Search box you may find in each page header.


THE SEARCH PAGE

Although this page looks very simple, there is a very powerful and complicated search engine behind the two forms. Most genealogy web sites just let you search for a name. PhpGedView lets you search for almost anything.

The Search box on the left of the screen is the same as the Search box in each page header.

If you are looking for people in connection to a certain year, just type the year. The program will find all connections for you.

Looking for a name, or place? Just type in the name or place, completely or just a part of it, and PhpGedView does the rest.

Soundex search method
With the search boxes on the right, you can search for names of persons and places, even if you don't know precisely how to write the name.

When there are several genealogical databases on one site and the administrator has enabled switching between them, your search will return the results for all of them.

You will find more help about these two boxes by clicking the ? above the boxes.


ENTER SEARCH TERMS

In this Search box you can enter criteria such as dates, given names, surnames, places, multimedia, etc.

Wildcards
Wildcards, as you probably know them (like * or ?), are not allowed, but the program will automatically assume wildcards.

Suppose you type in the Search box the following: Pete. The result could be, assuming the names are in the database:
Dates
Typing a year in the Search box will result in a list of individuals who are somehow connected to that year.

If you type 1950, the result will be all individuals with an event that occurred in 1950. These events could be births, deaths, marriages, Bar Mitzvahs, LDS Sealings, etc.

If you type 4 Dec, all persons connected to an event that occurred on 4 December of whatever year will be listed. Persons connected to an event on 14 or 24 December will be listed as well. As you see, wildcards are always assumed, so you do not have to type them. Sometimes, the results can be surprising.

Proper dates
PhpGedView searches for data, as they are stored in the GEDCOM file. If, for example, you want to search for an event on December 14, you should type 14 dec because this is how the date is stored in the database.

If you were to type dec 14, the result could be a person connected to an event on 08 december 1814. Again, the results can be surprising.

You can use regular expressions in your search if you are familiar with them. For example, if you wanted to find all of the people who have dates in the 20th century, you could enter the search 19[0-9][0-9] and you would get all of the people with dates from 1900-1999.

If you need more help with this searching system, please let us know, so that we can extend this Help file as well.

SEARCH THE WAY YOU THINK THE NAME IS WRITTEN (SOUNDEX)

Soundex is a method of coding words according to their pronunciation. This allows you to search the database for names and places when you don't know precisely how they are written. PhpGedView supports two different Soundex algorithms that produce vastly different results.

• Basic
  This method, patented in 1918 by Russell, is very simple and can be done by hand.
  
  Because the Basic method retains the first letter of the name as part of the resultant code, it is not very helpful when you are unsure of that first letter. The Basic algorithm is not well suited to names that were originally in languages other than English, and even with English names the results are very surprising. For example, a Basic Soundex search for Smith will return not only Smith, Smid, Smit, Schmidt, Smyth, Smithe, Smithee, Schmitt, all of which are clearly variations of Smith, but also Smead, Sneed, Smoote, Sammett, Shand, and Snoddy.
  
  
• Daitch-Mokotoff
  This method, developed in 1985, is much more complex than the Basic method and is not easily done by hand.
  
  A Soundex search using this method produces much more accurate results.

For details on both Soundex algorithms, visit this Jewish Genealogical Society web page.

SEARCH AND REPLACE

Here, you can search for a misspelling or other inaccurate information and replace it with correct information.

Searching
This feature performs searching just like a normal search.

Replacing
All instances of the search term that are found are replaced by the replacement term in the database.

For Example...
Suppose you accidentally misspell your great-grandpa Michael's name. You accidentally entered 'Micheal.'

You would type Micheal in the Search box, and Michael in the Replace box.
Every instance of "Micheal" would then be replaced by "Michael"

Search for...
Select the scope of the search. You can limit the search to names or places, or apply no limit (search everything). The Whole words only option will only search for your term in the place field as a whole word. This means that searching for UT would only match UT and not UT in the other words such as Connecticut.

Don't worry if you accidentally replace something where you don't want to. Just click the "Accept/Reject Changes" link at the bottom of the page to accept the changes you want, and reject the changes you don't want.

If you need more help with this searching system, please let us know, so that we can improve this Help file as well.