New Search on Find A Grave October 24, 2019 Update November 20, 2019

When I checked Find-A-Grave using search this morning, I noticed it was a bit different – https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/search?firstname=&middlename=&lastname=&birthyear=&birthyearfilter=&deathyear=&deathyearfilter=&location=&locationId=&linkedToName=&memorialid=&mcid=&datefilter=&orderby=. I used it recently and it was the same old search engine it has been for a while now. It was mostly the same, but with a few new options added. They removed the Partial Last Name search field and replaced it with Exact Name Search and Similar name spellings. However, from the quote below, Partial name searching is still possible. I don’t know if they rolled it out across the board, or in waves.

I missed this update last month on Find-A-Grave‘s new search –  New Search on Find A Grave October 24, 2019: https://news.findagrave.com/2019/10/24/new-search-on-find-a-grave/.

We’re excited to announce a new search for Find A Grave memorials! Click here to try it out. Right now the new search looks similar to the regular search, but uses a different search engine. We’ll make updates to its appearance in the future. We’d love for you to try the same search on new search and regular search so you can see how they compare.

Here are some added options for the new search:

• Last name is no longer required.
• We’ve added the option to include a spouse, sibling, child or parent in your search.
• The date range options include +/-1 , +/-3 , +/-5 birth and death years as well as exact, before and after.
• Search by Contributor ID to find memorials within yours and others management.
• There is an option to make your name search fuzzy that will help find names which might have a letter missing or a slight misspelling.
• Added partial or prefix search similar to the old search for the first and middle name fields (Ben will find Benjamin and L will find Larry). The spouse, parent, child or sibling names can also be partial spellings.
• In the name fields, you can use the ? or * wild cards. ? replaces one letter. * represents 0 to many letters. E.g. Sorens?n or Wil*

There are also some differences that you won’t notice in the fields, but may notice in your results:

• Today, when a search returns more than 10,000 matches we just show an error message. The new search will show you the first 10,000 matches and the sort options will work on the full result list.
• If you’ve added a spouse, sibling, child or parent, their name and relationship will be included in the result.
• We’ve made the search header stay at the top of the screen as you scroll. You can use it to refine your search, sort your results or change the page number to jump to later pages (up to page 500).

We’ve received great feedback and suggestions and look forward to more sent our way through our Beta Search Discussion page, pointed out below, or feedback@findagrave.com. Thanks for all you do, we hope you like the new search!

 

 

 

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