Notes on using the search feature

The most significant feature of the name search is that blank spaces after a name or date are wild card activated. If you are not certain of the spelling of a name, write as many letters as would be common to any spelling and leave the rest blank. The wild card feature will list all names in the database that match the letters listed. For example: if you are not certain whether the first name is Jane, Janet, or Jannette, try writing JAN - the result will show all the possible names that begin with JAN. Likewise, writing any portion of a date will return all the dates possible with the digits written.

The search by place will prompt you to enter a State to search in, followed by a County within the state. You must also enter a valid range of years to narrow the search. The results will list all family members with note references in that location within the date range specified.

The results of any given search are shown in table format with at most 200 records per page. When more than 200 records are available, you will be notified that the maximum records have been displayed. You should attempt to narrow your search if this hapens. The Number column of the table is a link that may be selected to view the detail information on the individual selected.

Where the parent of family member is known, the name is shown as a class="linklike">link that can be used to view the parent record. In a similar fashion, the children of the member are shown as class="linklike">links that can be used to navigate to the record for the child. It is thus possible to navigate the entire family tree using the embedded links.

Those records that have a record number of 260001 or higher are all descended from 260001 William Bunnell the immigrant who came from England in 1630. Each succeeding generation is assigned the next higher number series. For example, the children of William have 27xxxx numbers and their children are assigned 28xxxx numbers. All member records that start with 0 are temporary numbers and may or may not be descendents of William. When their descent from William is proven, they will be assigned a generation number to replace their temporary number.

Data on all living persons has been omitted from the detail information for the individual. Those wanting to view their family record in the database may contact us by email.

When the database was first entered in a computer, the disc space was limited. As a result a limited amount of notes were possible. An attempt is being made to update all the records with all sources of information and this will be continuing for several months or years. The goal is to list the source of all data shown in a record in the database.

References to locations in the note sources are standard state & county codes conforming to the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS). The first two digits are the standard postal abbreviation for the state and the final three numeric digits are assigned using successive odd numbers (001, 003 etc.) to the alphabetic listing of the county names.
A listing of these codes can be seen at mcdc.missouri.edu/websas/geocorr90_htmls/counties.html

Before the Church of Latter Day Saints listed their IGI and AS files on the Internet, the database listed these records from the LDS CD collection. Since these records are now available on the Internet, they have been removed from the database except where they emigrated to the US.