ScotlandsPeople explains recent search tool removals

Earlier this week I reported the sudden removal of the fuzzy search and name variant search options from the ScotlandsPeople website (see http://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2022/02/why-has-scotlandspeople-changed-its.html), which from the reactions I have read on several Facebook groups does seem to have upset many subscribers. 

I'm very grateful to Dee Williams at ScotlandsPeople (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk) for the following explanation as to why these options have been removed:

We have been aware for some time that the name variants options did not work correctly and produced spurious results that could not be explained. Also, for fuzzy searching, the search results often did not appear to relate to the name being searched on.

We have therefore removed these search options because they were unreliable and the results often did not provide useful results. We recommend instead that wildcards are used, which offer the most accurate results for the search criteria.

Alternatively if it is simply any names that start with a particular letter then the ‘Names that begin with’ is the best option. Phonetic searching still exists and these results simply provide suggested alternative names.

Going forward we recommend that you use wildcards to search for name variants or different spellings. Thus if you are searching for different spellings for MacAulay you can insert insert MaC*a*l*y, which will return the various spelling options, which include: MacAuley; MacAllay; MacAlley; MacAullay; MacAully; MacCally; MacCaulay and MacCauly. Thus the system looks up all spelling options between the letters where the wildcards are inserted.

Sometimes it is worth putting an asterix at the end of a name where it can sometimes be ended in a different letter like an e. For instance, Rankin* will return Rankin and Rankine.

If you want to look up different surname variants then the “The surnames of Scotland: their origin, meaning, and history”, by George Fraser Black, is a useful source of information. It can be viewed for free at the web link below. This publication shows all the various options for Scottish surnames and details when they were first referred to in the various archives. The various spelling options for the surname MacAulay are shown on page 551.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015011274175&view=1up&seq=27

I hope that you now have a better understanding as to why these two search options were removed. In the past we have also received emails from customers complaining about the search results produced by these search options and looking for explanations that we could not provide. 

COMMENT: I have thanked Dee for this explanation, and have asked whether there may be an intention to repair these tools and to reintroduce them at some stage, or whether this is indeed their final end on the site. I will update this post should I get a response. 

In the meantime, I should add that the book suggested by Dee, Black's Surnames of Scotland, is indeed worth bookmarking, my own copy is well worn through use!

(With thanks to Dee Williams)

Chris

My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.