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Archiver > APG > 2003-06 > 1055860312


From:
Subject: Re: [APG] wildcards at Ancestry.com
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 10:31:52 EDT


In a message dated 6/17/2003 1:53:37 AM Eastern Standard Time,
writes:

> Yes, there definitely is still a problem with the wildcard searches at
> Ancestry - but what I found and haven't heard from anyone else - is that if
> you use four letters and a wildcard, rather than three letters and a
> wildcard - you get entirely different results for the search.

Joan-

I'm not saying there is NOT something wrong with the wildcard searches you
checked but without knowing exactly what results you did get it wouldn't be
possible to know for sure. Since the * has a fixed limit as to the number of
characters it will match (I believe it is zero to five the same as it is for the
Message Boards). If some results which include DEMP* have more than five
additional characters (or whatever the max is) they would not show up on a search
of DEM*. Also, another possible factor, I'm not sure about case
sensitivity--but I know on the Message Boards only all lower case searches are case
insensitive. So a search for Dem* and dem* would not yield the same results.

Joan

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