Advanced Search

The advanced search screen can be used to refine your search beyond just name and date. This is most useful if you are searching for a popular surname or wish to localise your search to a geographical region. You can also use this facility to widen your search if the name you are looking for has not been found

You must still provide a surname or part of a surname and then enter any of the following details:

  1. In the First Name field you can enter the whole of the first name, or just the first part of it.
     
  2. Tick include similar names to include entries where the surname has a similar sound to that supplied. E.g. "Smythe" might be returned when you enter a last name of "Smith". Use this if you think that you might have spelt the name you are looking for wrongly.
     
  3. Enter a burial or cremation from year and to year range to limit the search to known years.
     
  4. Change the search for option if you know whether you are searching for a burial or a cremation.
     
  5. Change the country box if you wish to perform your search for a different country. Currently this is restricted to the UK. If you select a different country then the region box will adapt to contain the regions or states within that country.
     
  6. Change the region box from "All Regions" to a specific region if you wish to narrow your search to a different geographical region or state. If you select a specific region then a new county box will appear that contains the counties within that region.
     
  7. Use the county box to select a specific county if required, otherwise leave it on "All Counties". When you select a specific county, a burial authority or crematorium box is displayed with the associated authorities for this county.
     
  8. Use the burial authority or crematorium box to choose a specific site or leave it set to "All Sites". If you select a specific site then only the records for that site will be returned.
     
  9. Finally click the Search button.

General searching rules

When searching Deceased Online automatically applies the following rules:

  1. The case of the characters entered in the surname and forename boxes is ignored. I.e. if you enter "mclean" it will return "McLean" as well as "MCLEAN".
     
  2. Searches will automatically return records that have other characters after the name you have typed. I.e. if you enter "Jones" it will return "Jonesey" as well. This is because some records contain "AKA" (also known as) or "Née" (born as/maiden name) followed by the maiden name and those records might otherwise be missed.
     
  3. Any search will return a maximum of 500 records.

Wild cards

Wild cards can be used to broaden your search more precisely than the include similar names option. The following wildcard options are available.

% (percent sign)

Any sequence of zero or more characters. For examle "%Jones" finds all the entries that might have "Jones" anywhere in the name. This will bring out any names like "Smith AKA Jones" or "Smith Née Jones".

_ (underscore)

Any single character. For example entering '_ean' finds all names like "Dean" and "Sean".

[ characters ]

Any single character within the specified range (written as "[a-f]") or set (written as [abcdef]). For example "Mc[BL]ean" finds "McLean" and "McBean". Or "[A-D]%born" finds "Alborn", "Chadborne" and "Dawborn".

[^ characters]

Any single character not within the specified range, written as "[^a-f]" or set, written as "[^abcdef]". For example "de[^l]" would find "Devon" but not "Delaney".

Name variations

Wild cards can be used to effectively get around name variations, for example "MacLean" and "McLean".

Mac/Mc Use "M%c" followed by the rest of the surname

O'/O Use "O%" followed by the rest of the surname