Search Options in SP Changed?

[carlineric]

Chris Paton has added a further update. Apparently fuzzy matching and name variants were removed due to incorrect matching.

[ikas]

Thanks again for the update, Carlineric. To see the full explanation you have to go to Chris Patons latest post on 25th February at https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2022/02/scotlandspeople-explains-recent-search.html

That explanation is very disappointing given their earlier response which did sound as though they were going to reintroduce them. Their reasoning is faulty in my view. Of course, both options had faults but they were valuable and anyone with some experience understood they were not perfect. To suggest the phonetic option does not contain the same faults in even greater measure suggests to me that they have not thought this through. I agree with Annie - a backward step. Disappointing given some of the improvements they have made - mothers maiden name being one.

[hume]

Oh well, it's not as tiresome as the change that can make it so awkward to search for deaths of married women using both surnames.

For some combinations of surnames, you often get "Your search for 'other surname' returns too many results, please narrow your search criteria to return less than 1,000 results" even when there are fewer than 1,000 results for the first surname on its own.

Just be grateful that, unlike the Northern Ireland web site, you are not restricted to searching only 5 years at a time, and that there is the option of wild cards or phonetic matching, which are not an option on the New Zealand and New South Wales ones, and, again unlike those last two, that you can search most of SP without a surname.

Has anyone been able to work out a solution to this one? I don't understand why it will allow a search that shows up more results than one that with the cross-referenced name.

[ikas]

Got a newsletter from SP this morning with three top tips from SP staff to help your research. Tip 2 highlighted surnames were often variable and recommended using the name variants option on the surname search. If only we could!

Does make you wonder how often SP staff use their own search engine. Certainly not any involved in writing the newsletter.

[Forfarian]

I have e-mailed SP to express my delight that they are evidently about to reinstate the 'Name variants' search parameter. I await their response with great interest.

Perhaps they would appreciate a few more messages in similar terms? 

[ikas]

Perhaps they would appreciate a few more messages in similar terms?

A great idea!

[scotmum]

I have e-mailed SP to express my delight that they are evidently about to reinstate the 'Name variants' search parameter. I await their response with great interest.

Perhaps they would appreciate a few more messages in similar terms?

Off to do so now    .

Done ✓

[Rosinish]

Chris Paton has added a further update. Apparently fuzzy matching and name variants were removed due to incorrect matching.

I never had a problem in all the time I'd been using it since SP was introduced, why all of a sudden did it not do the job it was installed for after so many years, it's a complete mystery.
Maybe the surnames I was using in searches just happened to be ok 
It's just odd to me it took so many years to identify a problem.

Annie

[Rosinish]

Got a newsletter from SP this morning with three top tips from SP staff to help your research. Tip 2 highlighted surnames were often variable and recommended using the name variants option on the surname search. If only we could!

Does make you wonder how often SP staff use their own search engine. Certainly not any involved in writing the newsletter.

Just!!! 

A typical scenario where the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing 

Annie