This page helps explain the use of the various searchable databases on the website. It does not cover the 'Search our site' feature below the side menu. For more information regarding that and other features please visit the help page.

Search Tips

When searching for an entry in one of our databases, you must use at least two characters.

You can use either UPPER or lower case as the search is not case sensitive.

If you do not know the spelling of a name or place, or you wish to look for spelling variants, try using the * as a wild card. (i.e. adel* will find all words starting with adel). You can also use it to find groups of entries with the same first word (i.e. west*).

Some of the databases allow you to search a single field instead of the whole record. This is useful if for instance you are searching the Library catalogue and wish to know how many items had the name smith in the author's name.

The Library catalogue database, Journal Articles database and Place Codes database all allow you to choose the number of results displayed per page. This is handy if there are more results than can fit on one page.

When viewing the results of a database search, if there is more than one page of results there will be a Next page button located at the bottom of the page. To go to a previous page, use the Back button on your web browsers tool bar. There is also a Click for new search link if you wish to start a new search.

The SA Burial Places databases have letters or symbols displayed (i.e. HM RM U M F P p). These represent what records are available for these entries and what format you can find them in. The descriptions for these can be found at the bottom of the relevant results page. For example, P indicates the Society holds all photos for the relevant records and p indicates only some photos are available.