Wildcard searching supported on census & tithe applotments

yaledo

First off, tithe applotments are digitised, and fully searchable/downloadable alongside the census, at
http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/home.jsp

Secondly, if you are looking for a name that has lots of different spellings, the wildcard search feature can be enormously helpful.

I was delighted to discover today that this is supported for both the census and the tithe applotment books.

It saved me looking up every known variation on the name [Hastings] I was researching, but much more importantly, it revealed a variation I'd never seen before.

Use a '?' to replace any character (like a blank in Scrabble), or use a '*' to match several characters.

As an example, rather than doing 8 different searches, for: Hastings, Hastin, Haston, Heston, Histon, Hester, Hestor
I simply searched for the name: H?ST*, to get them all in one shot.

This saved me a pile of effort, but also revealed a new spelling "Hestings" which I would never have thought of searching for.

An additional benefit is that it may unearth some records which have been incorrectly transcribed.

pjproby

that technique also works on the irish genealogy site.