Search function doesn't return matches on the Current Name when the LNAB is Unknown

Question

Now that the name search function has been greatly improved, I am increasingly concerned about one gaping hole in its functionality. If a person's LNAB is Unknown, and I search for their First Name and Current Last Name, their profile will not appear on the results list.

Example: I used http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:SearchPerson to search for Agnes Curtis, looking for profiles that appear to be duplicates for Agnes (Unknown) Curtis. (This is a 16th-century person who has been created repeatedly, and I knew that there were at least 3 probable-match profiles.) The results list includes three profiles with various names in the LNAB field, but it did not include the profile I was looking at when I entered the search, nor did it contain any other profiles with LNAB of Unknown.

For the name search function to serve its important purposes in WikiTree, it needs to be able to find matching profiles that have LNAB of Unknown -- particularly in cases like this where it is likely that the person's LNAB is truly Unknown. Can this be fixed?

Comments

Many of us have long wanted search results to include LNAB Unknown. I don't recall Chris' reasoning for excluding it. System overload?

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When I asked for this once before, I got the impression that some people thought I wanted to search for names like "Agnes Unknown." That's not what I'm asking for. I want to be able to search for names like "Agnes Curtis" and find matching profiles like Agnes Curtis.

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Ah, so even though search is supposed to search CLN and OLN, IF "Unknown" is in LNAB, then results are excluded? Oh that is not good...

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I just came across another duplicate created due to this problem.

It needs to be fixed. It seems like it should be a no-brainer to be able to conduct a search using CLN no matter what the LNAB is

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It stands to reason that many duplicates get created because of this gap in Search.

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I've pinged Chris W to respond.

Answer 1

This has been fixed.

See:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/401820/new-improvements-to-search-and-matching