Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Anomaly When Searching the Marriage Civil Records?

Options
  • 08-04-2018 6:19pm
    #1
    Leeside
    Registered Users Posts: 228 ✭✭


    Maybe this is already well known but I must admit I only noticed it today. When searching for a marriage you will get different results depending on what surname you insert in the top search box. It seemed to me at first that the results produced were on the basis that the first surname was being taken as the husband's and the second as the wife's but that does not appear to be the case.

    I thought also that maybe similar surnames to the first name were included and only exact results for the second surname but that does not hold true also.

    For example and this is purely a random example, if you are looking for a marriage between a person named 'Shea' and a person 'Riordan' in Caherciveen without date limits, you get 6 results one way and 9 results if you reverse the surnames - all different.

    Is there any explanation for this? I have a feeling that I'm missing something simple on this!


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    Earnest
    Registered Users Posts: 106 ✭✭Earnest


    Where are the two search boxes? Are we talking about irishgenealogy.ie?


  • Options
    #3
    Leeside
    Registered Users Posts: 228 ✭✭Leeside


    Earnest wrote: »
    Where are the two search boxes? Are we talking about irishgenealogy.ie?

    Yes I should have made that clear. I'm referring to the civil records search facility on irishgenealogy.ie.

    The search boxes I'm referring to are the 'last name' in the top line and the '2nd party' in the marriage section.

    Surely the results should be the same but they're not. It appears that to get the full results you need to do two searches, switching the surnames for the second search.

    I didn't know this particular quirk in the system and I'm sure to have missed some relevant results in the past.


  • Options
    #4
    Hermy
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,313 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    There are a lot of issues with the search function at Irish Genealogy.
    The real problem is for those who don't know about these anomalies and give up searching.

    Another one to watch out for is surnames that begin O'something - such as O'Neill for instance.
    Search the 1800's for "O'Neill" deaths and you will find there were 5 but search for "ONeill" and you get 10,000 odd.
    And "O Neill" gets you another 1300 odd!

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Options
    #5
    shanew
    Registered Users Posts: 2,777 ✭✭✭shanew


    I use the FMP Civil Marriage index search , much better as it allows wildcards, selection of multiple districts etc - you dont need to be a member

    ( you get stray matches - as it's based on the index references matching, but a good starting point, plus it give the old style index refs. which are essential if you have a problem record)


  • Options
    #6
    Earnest
    Registered Users Posts: 106 ✭✭Earnest


    Leeside wrote: »
    Yes I should have made that clear. I'm referring to the civil records search facility on irishgenealogy.ie.

    The search boxes I'm referring to are the 'last name' in the top line and the '2nd party' in the marriage section.

    Still puzzled. There's some quirk that I haven't found out. There's only one search box that I can find, the one that you start with. At what point does another one appear?


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    Hermy
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,313 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Click the More search options link...
    447805.png

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Options
    #8
    Hermy
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,313 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    That will bring up the range of options Leeside is referring to...
    447806.png

    Genealogy Forum Mod



  • Options
    #9
    Earnest
    Registered Users Posts: 106 ✭✭Earnest


    Hermy wrote: »
    That will bring up the range of options Leeside is referring to...
    447806.png

    Brilliant! Never found that. Shows how useful this forum is.


Advertisement