Person doesn't come up in the search feature but is in the tree.

Question

I don't know if this a glitch or not. I was looking for Abraham Lincoln Decker, born 1863 in Illinois. He didn't come up in the person search box. But I found him another way, through a link. Once I had him I compared the search criteria used against the profile and they matched. I tried the search again and other possiblities came up but not him.

   What do you need if it happens again? Screen shot/s? URLs of both? I believe it's happened before, as other's came up after another child was added.

Thank you

Carol Weldon

ncweldon at sbcglobal dot net

my profile: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Irving-2032

Comments

3rd search result for me :

Abraham Decker bef 14 Jan 1722 - Decker-54  

Abraham Decker bef 29 Aug 1714 Ulster, New York - Decker-4391

Abraham Lincoln Decker 02 Oct 1863 Leroy, McLean County, IL, USA - 23 Oct 1938 Decker-2675

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He is 3rd in my search result, like Melanie.  When I get my search results, I always sort immediately by Birth Date, unless the only thing I have is a Death Date.  That makes it easier to scroll to find the people in the 'range' of birth years that I am looking for.  You can always use the filter at the bottom but then you only have a range of a couple of years that will be used.

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Try just his surname, 1863 BD and Illinois as BP and he doesn't come up.

If I just do Abraham Decker he is my number 4 in the list.

So there is a glitch.

Answer 1

The reason it doesn't come up when you enter Illinois spelled out is because his profile has the 2 letter abbreviation.  Another reason for having the US states not abbreviated, as stated in the locations help pages. If you enter IL only, it comes up. There are many profiles with no location so entering the location, you will be excluding profiles without the location. Entering a date will allow you to see profiles within a 2 year range, I think, but it will exclude people that could be just outside that range that might also match.  People weren't always exact on dates. Census had ages only and differed from one year to the next so approximate birth years can be entered.

Comments

Thanks Jamie