People with LNAB of Unknown aren't appearing in search results

Question

The search function seems to be misbehaving. It appears to me that people with LNAB of "Unknown" are no longer showing up in search results on their Current Last Names.

I tried to find the profile for Anna van Londen using the search functionality, but she doesn't turn up in the search results. She's an "Unknown" LNAB, but I expected to find her profile using her first name of Anna and her current last name of van_Londen (or Van_Londen). I also tried the wildcard searches using An* and van_Lon*. The search result includes two other Anna Van Londens, but not the one I was looking for.

I get similar results when I search for two other LNAB-Unknown profiles: Elizabeth Brooks and  Bridget Varney. However, search returns appropriate results for Current Last Names and Other Last Names if the person has an ordinary LNAB.

PS - Unknowns also aren't appearing in the Surname list for their Current Last Name.

Comments

Ellen, I think there was a similar question awhile ago, and if I remember correctly , Unknown's don't show up in any of the searches because there are so many of them, it would 'break' the search or slow it right down.

You can find Unknown in the Surname list, if you type it into the box next to Jump directly to any surname by entering it here:  but then there are over 200,000 of them, so it becomes difficult to find what you might be looking for because there are limited sorting options.

I'm also finding it a bit frustrating, many of the early EuroAristo profiles often have unknown as either their Last Name At Birth or Current Last Name or even First Name (they'll be entered as Unknown Charlemagne for instance).  So when looking for duplicates of these profiles, I'm often sure there will be others with Unknown somewhere in their name, but they seem impossible to find, unless there are other search techniques, I'm not using.

 

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John, please note that I didn't search for Anna Unknown. As you note, that would be an exercise in futility!

I searched for Anna van_Londen, which happens to be the earliest (and possibly only) recorded name for this particular woman, but van Londen is presumed not to have been her LNAB. Not long ago, the search results list for Anna van_Londen would have included the woman I was looking for -- I am sure of this because I have relied on search to help find existing profiles for people for whom I had a first name and a current last name, but whose LNAB is unknown. Inability to do that kind of search will make it a lot harder to prevent the creation of duplicate profiles.

Answer 1

On your PS  spouses wont show unless you resort the table and choose the option  include people with current last name 

Comments

Thanks, Jacky. That's a new "feature." Until very recently, current last names were included in the Surnames table by default. The fact that it's now necessary to resort the table to find that option means that most of us will miss it most of the time.

Maybe the team can explain why it's necessary to resort the table to see the fine-print options.

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I'll probably kick myself when I get the answer - but what on earth is a PS?

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a postscript  another way of saying afterthought

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Now I feel stupid, I was thinking it was a Wikitree acronym I hadn't heard of.

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This isn't something new, it's been like that in the year or so I've been here and I find it very useful.