Search Options in SP Changed?

[ikas]

Am I losing the plot or have the search options on SP for BMD changed. There are now only four options - exact, wild card allowed, Names that begin with, and phonetic matching. I now cannot remember how many there used to be but fuzzy matching is no longer available.

I was using the site on Monday so think that the change is since then. Looked at news on home page but no mention of a change there.

Can anyone confirm the change and remember the original options.

[sonofthom]

You're correct. I searched on Sunday and used the "name variants" option, which I find very useful.; sadly it's now gone.

[dowdstree]

Confirmed by me also. Now only the 4 options available in search options.

Bit of a trial really as there can be so many variants with surnames. I have been known to only put in the first name and place (if known) and scroll through to a likely spelling of the name I am looking for. It does work honestly.

Happy hunting,

Dorrie

[ikas]

Thanks for confirming. Yes, name variants was the one I could not remember. How strange as I am sure I read some time ago they were working on that aspect ie building up more comprehensive lists of name variants. It will be interesting to test if phonetic matching is a substitute for name variants. I suspect not.

[carlineric]

Chris Paton has blogged about this on his blog at https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2022/02/why-has-scotlandspeople-changed-its.html.

[Gadget]

Oh, I don't think that I like that at all.

Thanks for the link to Chris Paton's article.

[Gadget]

Oh, I don't think that I like that at all. Lots of * needed then!

Thanks for the link to Chris Paton's article.

Sorry I went in to modify comment about * and I accidentially did a reply 

Name variants was my favourite!

[Forfarian]

Name variants was my favourite!

Yes, I used that quite a lot.

Removing it is going to make researching Moug/Mugg/Mogg/Maig/Mogue/Mug/Mouge/Mogge/Mogie/Mague etc etc much more difficult - M*g* includes all the names with M(a)c*g* and phonetic matching produces pages of Meeks, Mackies and Mackays. <sigh>

[ikas]

Thanks for the link Carlineric. I repeated some of my searches from the weekend and those suggest that phonetic search catches the records that fuzzy matching caught. However in some situations it brings up far too many hits. Nine hits with exact on changed to 291 hits (12 pages) with phonetic matching. Is Stewart really phonetically similar to Struthers?

Early days yet but not impressed so far and certainly not impressed at not being informed before or after the event.