Hints for Searching

NJGenWeb ~ Morris County, New Jersey

Hints for Searching

Hints for searching: Names that you will find on these pages were generally transcribed as they were found. Many times they were originally recorded phonetically and the spelling may not be as you know it today.
If you are using the full name, try just the surname. If looking for a name that may be two word, i.e., McCory, try using MC CORY, MCCORY, or even M'CORY. My suggestion would be to search for M*CORY to cover all three variations.

By default the search engine tries to locate pages which have exact matches for all of the words entered in your search query. If that fails, it then tries to locate pages which contain any words in your search query. If that happens a short message is displayed at the top of the search results indicating this has been done.

In addition, there are several ways to modify the default search behavior.

phrase search
The search engine supports three types of phrase search.
- To match an exact phrase, use quotes around the phrase
  Example: "free search engine"
- To match a near (within a couple of words) phrase, use square brackets [around the words]
  Example: [free search engine]
- To match a far (within several words) phrase, use braces { around the words }
  Example: {free search engine}
+ and - qualifiers
If you prepend a word with + that word is required to be on the page.
If you prepend a word with - that word is required to not be on the page.
Example: +always -never
* wildcard
If a query word ends with a * all words on a page which start the same way as that query word will match. Example: gift*
? wildcard
If a query word contains a ? any character will match that position. Example: b?g
boolean search
You can use the following boolean operators in your search: AND, OR, NOT. These operators MUST be in capital letters.
Example: (contact AND us) OR (about AND us)

All of these techniques can be combined: +alway* -ne??r*