Basic person search

Search

Basic person search can be found on the main page of The Digital Archives.

In the search field, you can write as many names or words you wish to search for, in whatever order.

A basic person search automatically searches for variations in spelling for any names you may have entered. If you are searching for Fridjof for example, then you will see results for both Fridthjof and Fridtjof.

Read more about name variant search here: Name variant results

For person search, the search engine will match your search terms against the following data fields:

• first name
• last name
• birth year
• birth place
• family position, marital status and profession
• abode
• role

You can also visit the search page for basic person search in The Digital Archives.

Quick results list

If you use the search box on the main page, you will be presented with a quick results list as you type. The quick results list will show how many results have been found in The Digital Archives, starting with the top 5 results.

The results which contain the most of your search terms, are considered the most relevant and will be displayed at the top of the list. If one more more search terms is present in the name fields, then these results are deemed more relevant than matches in other fields.

What is shown in the quick results list?

• A persons first and last name
• Birth year and place of birth (if the source material contained them)
• The source of the result e.g census, church book or other
• Gender of the person, displayed using a symbol (if gender is not available in the source, a circle is displayed)
• Date of the event from which the result originates. An event could, for example, be a date for a census, marriage or christening.

If you wish to show more results, click on the "View all results" button, furthest down in the quick result list.

Results list

Clicking on "View all results" (or pressing enter when you have entered your search terms), will show the full result list, as shown in the figure above (click on the thumbnail to for a bigger version):

Note that to the left of the result list, is a panel which allows you to customize the current search. You can change the search terms, and add restrictions such as dates and geographic area. When using the customize search panel, you must press "Search", to update the results list on the right, if you have altered any of the search parameters.

To browse all pages in the results, use the buttons which you will find at the top or bottom of the results list.

To start a new search, click the "Reset" button

At the bottom of the Customize Results panel, there is also a link to the Advanced Person Search page

Ordering of results

The "Best" results will be shown at the top of the results list, which means that a search for Ole Bruvik for example, will produce a top result of "Ole Th Bruvik (b. 1862 Bruvik) Place of residence: Bruvik:Ulfsnesøen". Because the placename "Bruvik" is found three times in the information connected to this person, the result is then deemed to be the most relevant, and therefore the best result.

The order of results is also affected by the weighting of the various fields you are searching in. The weighting is something which we can alter if we discover a good reason to do so. As per June 2017, the weighting is defined thus:

• first name 3
• last name 4
• birth year 2
• birth place 2
• position og civil status 2
• abode 2
• roll 2 (rolls such as mother, father, deceased)
• tags 1 (results which have been tagged with a certain category)

Examples

A person search for peder gundersen will generate results for Peder Gundersen, Peder Andreas Gundersen and John Peder Gundersen.

It will also generate results for Malene Gundersen because her profession is listed as Provided for by fisherman Peder Gundersen.