Type words (or file name) or phrases into the entry box that you want to search for, then click [Search].
Just type one or more words to find any of the words. [ Find ANY ] is the usual default.
Type more than one word and select [ Find ALL ] to find all of the words. Or you can use Booleans (see below).
"..." You can search for exact phrases by surrounding them in double quotes. Or you can just type the words and select [ Find EXACT phrase ]. Punctuation must be the same to be found between words, for example "Smith, John"
+ - Use + in front of each word or a quoted phrase that you require. Use - in front of each word that you want to exclude.
AND OR NOT ( ) Use AND, OR, NOT, (, and ) to form a Boolean expression. AND requires, OR allows, NOT excludes. Use double quotes to protect the words "and", "or", or "not" in a phrase.
Examples:
| Query | Gets the documents with |
| stock market | 'stock' or 'market' or both |
| "stock market" | the phrase 'stock market' |
| +stock +market | 'stock' and 'market' |
| +stock -market | 'stock' but not 'market' |
| +president -"United States" | 'president' but not 'United States' |
| (stock OR market) AND NOT president | 'stock' or 'market', and without 'president' |
Capitalization doesn't matter. The ranked results will come from a total match on the words and phrases which you supply, so try to think of several specific terms for your topic and spell them correctly. It may help to include important plurals and derived words too, like [address addresses contact contacting information].
To facilitate picosearch use the database is separated into 25 files corresponding to the beginning letter of the given name, i.e., A through Z (no names start with X). Search results will lead you to one or more files and, after you click on your choice, you can view all the individuals in the database whose given names start with that letter.
If you need the above instructions for further searches, click on the tiny Help link beneath the Search button after your first search (it doesn't appear until you have searched at least once).
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