Limiting the search terms

[mahnrut]

In the brickwall section I tried to search by putting my ancestor's names in quotes as I was getting thousands of hits without doing that but the system rejected that. I couldn't see any advanced search mechanism to limit my search interest by exact name either. Am I missing something? Thanks

[Pam Downes]

Were you putting in just a surname or first names as well? e.g. John Smith instead of just Smith

Pam

[Pam Downes]

Eh, you learn something new every day.
I've always known about the 'advanced search' but I've literally only just realised that there are
two 'sections' to it.

From the 'quick links' drop-down menu select 'advanced search'.
There are then two tabs - by default the 'search multiple content types' is shown. Click on 'select single content type'.
Scroll down the page and there's another option box 'Search in forums' to search a particular forum. Select the one you want.
Bingo.

Pam

[Coromandel]

You could also use Google to search the site. For example, to search for Joe Bloggs with the search restricted to the BG forum, put "Joe Bloggs" site:https://www.british-genealogy.com/forums into the Google search box.

[mahnrut]

Thanks for these ideas but I saw all of those options but they didn't seem to address my issue.
I was searching the brickwall forum and I put in Daniel Dickerson and I got tons of hits including those with just a Daniel in them so I entered "Daniel Dickerson" in quotes which in other search engines limits hits to instances where those two words come together. It didn't work in this search though. Any more ideas?

[mahnrut]

Thanks Coromandel for your suggestion of using Google to search the site. That worked. I put "Daniel Dickerson" site...... as you suggested and got my 3 postings only so that answers my question of whether others have posted on Daniel! It would be nice to be able to do it on the site itself though!

[Pam Downes]

Mahnrut, The first post in this thread is timed and dated as 12.57pm on 27 Sept, and subsequent posts in this thread imply that you were searching for a post about Daniel Dickerson.
But the your post in the Brickwalls forum about Daniel isn't timed and dated until 1.05pm on 27 Sept, i.e. 8 minutes after you posted your query about having problems searching for a name. If a name hasn't been posted to the forum then of course you're going to get a 'nil' return.

Now we know exactly what you were looking for, it becomes much easier to advise you.
First of all you can set the details in your profile so that you receive notification when someone posts a reply to either a thread you started, or a thread in which you posted. In the banner across the top, in 'Forum actions' there's a drop-down option to 'edit profile'.
Third box on left-hand side is 'my settings'.
Then my account > general settings.
In main 'body' of page > Default Thread Subscription Mode, and then click on either daily or instantly via email, depending on how quickly you want to know about a post.
Remember to scroll to the bottom of the page and save changes.

Next to the Default Thread Subscription Mode there is a sentence about 'subscribed threads'. You'll have to follow that link because I don't want to probe too far and upset my settings!

The alternative if you have only a few threads to follow - and can remember in which forums you posted them! - is simply to look in that/those forums and look for threads which have a green circle with a white arrow in them. The green circle indicates that you have posted in that thread.

Pam

[mahnrut]

Thanks Pam for your reply. I am getting email notifications of posts to my threads so that is not an issue. I am not sure I understand the implications of the date/time (issues?) you mention though and what to do about them. As far as I know I have only replied to the appropriate forum whether it is the brickwall one or this one "navigating brit gen". And no-one yet has said that I cannot limit the search to something in quotes although Coromandel insinuated that by suggesting a search in Google on this site only out of the site of course. Thanks for your interest. Barbara

[Pam Downes]

Hi Barbara,
Firstly let me say that there are no problems with any of your posts. So put any worries about them out of your head.

It's also good that you had either set up email notifications from the start or that you did so following my instructions. It's a system that makes life very easy for you if you post in several threads and can't quite remember which query/reply went in which thread!

I am not sure I understand the implications of the date/time (issues?) you mention though and what to do about them

Are you referring to what I said about you searching the forum for Daniel Dickerson? If so, think of it this way.

It's 12.55pm and you search the brickwall forum searching for Daniel Dickerson.
You find no reference to the name.
At 12.57pm you post (in completely the correct forum, i.e. 'problems navigating BG' ) saying that you couldn't find your ancestor's name. Unless you had found (by googling, for example) something that led you to believe that Daniel's name was to be found anywhere on the site then you have no guarantee that you will find a link to Daniel on BG.

Eight minutes later, at 1.05pm, you post your query about Daniel in the Brickwall forum. So until you made this post there is no reference to Daniel on the BG forum.

However, I've noticed that you joined the forum in 2010, but have only now begun to post. So did you think that you had previously posted a query about Daniel and that is why you were expecting his name to show up in a search?

As for searching the BG in general, as everywhere 'less is more'. Search for Daniel Dickerson and you'll get every Daniel as well as any Dickerson references. If you search on just the surname, it does lessen the hits (common names such as Smith notwithstanding!).
Using the advanced search system, if you know the user name of the person who made the post, that again limits the number of hits. (You can put in your own user name.)
And now I've found the 'other half' of the advanced search, where you can limit the query to a specific forum you will reduce the number of hits even more.

If I've misunderstood the date/time issues, could you explain what you mean in a little more detail, please?

Pam

[Mutley]

I've got very confused here and I know it is not difficult to confuse the old Mut but...

I assumed Barbara was wishing to find out if
(A) someone else had posted about a Daniel Dickerson rather than finding
(B) her own posts about Daniel?

Two different questions requiring two different answers.

Coromandel has given the fastest way to find (A) because Barbara would not know the poster's name, the forum or when.
There are a massive amount of threads and posts going back many years on BG and the google search engine is far superior and probably costs a lot more that BGs so unfortunately using quotes here does not work.

Pam has given the best ways for (B) in her normal very helpful and precise fashion.

Time is not an issue unless you are in a hurry and anyone researching their family history learns that it slips away all to easily.