From: MaggieMole@aol.com > Well, everyone is much cleverer than I am at driving the IGI, even > allowing for the fact that I didn't think of spelling variants - I > think (and hope) the search engine does this for me. I can locate > this particular record by typing in George Malinson and the year > 1804, but not by doing a wider search. We're talking about > _www.familysearch.org_ (http://www.familysearch.org) , right? And just > using the dialogue box on the front page? It's doing nothing for me: > I want to find John Mallinson, as that's Selina's father's name on > her marriage certificate which just arrived today. She was born in > Wakefield and married in Mirfield, which gives me no lead to John at > all.> Never, ever assume anything about the IGI or www.familysearch.org!!! It simply doesn't always work in the way you expect it to. Whilst, yes, in theory it should find variants of the name you type in, it does not always find obvious ones or ones we would think are obvious. Let me give you a couple of examples..... 1) I do a one-name study of Stockdale/Stockdill and variants and whilst the IGI at FamilySearch finds a number of variants of the name, it does not find a major one of STOGDALE or any variant with a G in the middle. To find Stogdales I have to enter this as a separate name in the search box. 2) One of my major research interests is in the name YELLOW/YALLOW. Whilst the IGI finds these, it does NOT find YELLOWLEY, YALLOWLEY, YELLOWLAY, YALLOWLAY, YELLOWLOW etc. Again, I have to enter these separately. A further point to consider is that sometimes a name may have got so hopelessly mangled in spelling, possibly by the original incumbent or in transcription, that it appears in some weird variant that no amount of searching by the normal methods will find. Here's what you can do in a case like that..... 1) First you must find out the appropriate batch number for a particular parish. You can do this by doing a place search in the Family History Library Catalogue or by finding an entry that you know to be in that particular parish and calling it up. 2) Click on the batch number in the screen that gives you the full information. This automatically inserts the batch number into the appropriate box in the IGI search screen with all other fields empty. 3) Enter the region British Isles AND NOTHING ELSE AT ALL. In other words, leave all the other fields BLANK. Click on Search and you will get the entire register come up, alphabetically! You can then scroll all the way through it in screens of 200 entries at a time - a somewhat cumbersome and tedious process but you may be lucky enough to spot that missing entry you seek "lurking" somewhere in the register in a peculiarly-spelt variant you hadn't even thought of! I have often found "missing" entries with this method that I couldn't find with a conventional search. Mind you, you may have to trawl through several thousand entries. Remember - enter the batch number (this is vital) and the region. If you are pretty sure of the date of any event you can enter the year (or with +/- parameters) and get every entry for that particular year or period. However, the important thing is not to enter anything in the first name or last name fields. Try playing about with it - it works! -- Roy Stockdill Editor, Journal of One-Name Studies Guild of One-Name Studies website: www.one-name.org Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE