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Search smarter

A few shortcuts that make it easier to find the right person, event, or file — especially once the database has grown.

Names

  • Leave out å, ä, and ö if you like. The search ignores accents, dots, and rings, and upper and lower case: "lundstrom" finds Lundström and "elise" finds Élise.
  • Nicknames count. "lisa" finds Elisabet whose nickname is Lisa, and "lisa andersson" finds her too — the nickname counts together with the last name.
  • Alternate names count. If Anna Persdotter is also listed as "Anna Pettersson" in alternate names, you find her on both.
  • Part of the name is enough. "kvist" finds both Lundkvist and Kvist.

Enter the nicknames

If a source lists a person by their nickname — "Kalle på Backen" — put it in the Nickname field. Separate several nicknames with semicolons. Then you find the person on both names, and the duplicate search can pair them with a record that has the nickname as first name.

The person list

  • The A–Ö index filters by the first letter of the last name, together with the search and the other filters.
  • The search also looks at place of birth and death, tags, and categories. Type a place to see everyone born or died there.
  • From the statistics you get straight to the list filtered by, for example, a missing place of birth — click Show the persons.

Tags as search terms

Imports set tags such as -gedcom-import-2026-11-02 and -gedcom-warning-2026-11-02. Search for "-gedcom-warning" in the person list to see everyone who got a warning during an import, or for your own tag, for example "to verify".

→ Tags and categories in practice

Events

  • Search by event type with everyday words: "death" or "died" finds deaths and "burial" finds burials. Type at least three characters.
  • Filter by person to see every event a person is linked to, across the whole database.
  • The timeline by person shows the same in chronological order.

When the duplicate search doesn't find the pair

The Manual search tab in the duplicate list lets you search freely and select two or more records to merge — useful when a typo is too big for the automatic search.

In the Link existing event and Link existing (media) dialogs, you search the whole database, not just what's shown. "angstrom" finds an image with Ångström in the title. What's already linked is marked, so you see right away if you're about to link something twice.

See also