Advanced Search

Users with an active account can use further search options and these can be used to refine your search beyond just name and date.

The advanced search options are useful if you are searching for a popular surname or wish to localise your search to one particular geographical region. You can also use this facility to widen your search if the name you are looking for has not been found.

 

In the ‘My Account’ section, you have four options:

  • Deceased Search
  • Alias Search
  • Memorial Search
  • Location Search

Please note, you will need an active account to use these search options.

Deceased Search enables you to search for any one person, the only required field is surname, so if you are unsure of the first name, or year of burial/cremation, you can simply search for a surname. This however can pull hundreds of results, especially with common surnames. If you have a first name, or know just the initial of the person you are looking for, this will help to narrow the search. You can also put a range in the date sections, for example, find anyone called ‘Smith’ who was buried or cremated between 1920 and 1925. This will narrow down your search to people buried or cremated in between those years. This function also allows you to choose to search for children under 16, stillborn babies, and entries with missing or unknown first names. These functions are off, unless you specifically choose them to be on.

Alias Search is a function which enables you to search for people who you know have an alias. If you enter the name you think, or know, the person was known as, this will be revealed in this section. Often maiden names will be available here, but not in every case.

Memorial Search enables you to look in our memorial collection. These include photos and transcriptions of headstones and memorials, and can be purchased as a whole collection, or individually. Currently our collections of memorials are primarily in Scotland, however we aim to add more.  

Location Search enables you to search by town, city or county. In the ‘location search’ section on ‘my account’ page, search for a county, town or cemetery. Choosing to search for a county will widen your initial search. If your chosen area is available, you can choose the available cemeteries and crematoria. Once you have chosen the cemetery or crematoria to search in, you will be able to search for a person.

If your location search is unsuccessful, it may mean we don’t cover that area at present, however we are constantly adding new areas, so make sure to check back often.

General searching rules

When searching, Deceased Online automatically applies the following rules:

  • You do not need to use upper case characters, for example, if you enter ‘mcdonald’ this will automatically search for ‘McDonald’
  • Searches will automatically return records that have other characters after the name you have typed. For example, if you have searched for the surname ‘Thom’, this search will also show ‘Thomas’, ‘Thompson’ ‘Thomson’ ‘Thomton’.
  • The initial search will exclude any alias, however there is an option to choose to see a separate list of surnames recorded as an alias.
  • Any search will return the entire collection of the chosen name, for example, we currently have over 167,000 records with ‘Smith’ contained somewhere in the surname.

 

Wild cards

Wild cards can broaden your search by adding a character where a letter would normally go.

% (percent sign)

Any sequence of zero or more characters. For example ‘%Jones’ finds all the entries that might have ‘Jones’ anywhere in the name. If a name has alternative spelling, using the percent sign like this: ‘Sm%th’ will generate search results of ‘Smith’ or ‘Smyth’, or ‘Smythy’. Using this method will generate a large amount of results, so may not be useful in every example.

Wild cards can be used to effectively search for name variations, for example ‘MacLean’ and ‘McLean’. If you use ‘M%c’ followed by the rest of the surname, this will generate the different variations.

_  (underscore)

Any single character. For example entering '_ean' finds all names like ‘Dean’ and ‘Sean’. Trying the underscore in different parts of the name, such as ‘B_rr’ will generate names such as ‘Burr’ and ‘Barr’. This could be useful with older registers with intricate handwriting where the actual letters are illegible.

 

 

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