Search tips
The search box takes more than plain words. This guide gathers the ways to find exactly what you are after. For the search itself, see Searching the catalogue.
Phrases, exclusions and alternatives
- Put a phrase in double quotes:
"deed of transfer". - Put a minus sign before a word to leave it out:
photographs -postcards. - Use
OR, in capitals, for either of two words:Pretoria OR Tshwane. - Combine them:
"town council" minutes -draft.
Word forms
Search reduces words to their stem, so photograph, photographs and photographed find each other. Very common words such as the and of are passed over, so a phrase still matches when they differ.
Names and identifiers
Every published name of an entity finds it, not only its authorised form: a person's maiden name, a body's former name, a place's older spelling. A reference code or identifier typed exactly finds the unit it belongs to.
Narrowing
After a search, the facets narrow by kind, level of description, repository and years. A range of years finds units whose dates overlap it, so 1900 to 1910 finds a series of 1895 to 1905.
Browsing instead of searching
Searching suits a question you can put in words. To see what a collection holds, start from its top: the public catalogue's home lists every top-level collection and every repository, each opening onto what is inside it, and every entity's page links to the entities related to it. The graph explorer answers questions about relations, such as every record created by members of a given family.
Nothing found
- Try fewer words, or a word less specific.
- Try another form of a name, or the place under its older name.
- Check the spelling; search does not correct it.
- In the public catalogue, the record may simply not be published yet.