FindAGrave web search

[Warren White]

Perhaps this is a larger question, but let me limit my particular question to just this web site.

When I do a web search on FindAGrave for my father from Reunion 10, it returns 3960 hits. This is apparently because the birth and death years are not carried from Reunion to FindAGrave.

When I search FindAGrave from its own site, and enter birth and death years, there are only 4 hits, one of which is my father.

Can't the web search feature be tweaked to enter birth and death years from within Reunion when that information is there?

[Keith Bage]

Re: FindAGrave web search

Perhaps this is a larger question, but let me limit my particular question to just this web site.

When I do a web search on FindAGrave for my father from Reunion 10, it returns 3960 hits. This is apparently because the birth and death years are not carried from Reunion to FindAGrave.

When I search FindAGrave from its own site, and enter birth and death years, there are only 4 hits, one of which is my father.

Can't the web search feature be tweaked to enter birth and death years from within Reunion when that information is there?

Hi Warren,

The FindAGrave search does pass the birth and death dates from Reunion so I'm not sure why that's not working for you.

When you perform a search take a look at the url and you should see the dates being passed as part of it i.e. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg...1848&GSdy=1942.

Note the Birth of 1848 and death of 1942 being passed here. Let me know what your url is that is passed from Reunion.

Regards

Keith

[Warren White]

Re: FindAGrave web search

I see by the URL [page=gsr&GSfn=Charles&GSln=WHITE&GSby=1914&GSdy=19 88] that it "thinks" it is passing the birth and death dates, but the search results do not correspond to the limits expressed.

When I select "Refine last search" (which I assume will be the search processed through Reunion) there are no birth / death dates presented. The results are as I mentioned in my initial post.

I am glad to see you respond, Keith. You seem to be the expert in this particular use of Reunion.

I appreciate your insights and any help you might have.

If you wish to see what I am trying, you might create a file with the information shown in the URL above. I can't see what I might be doing wrong.

[Allsop]

Re: FindAGrave web search

I am certainly no expert but the URL is showing up in your post with a gap in the '1988' it is showing as 19 88, could this be something to do with it?

Cheers

[Keith Bage]

Re: FindAGrave web search

I see by the URL [page=gsr&GSfn=Charles&GSln=WHITE&GSby=1914&GSdy=19 88] that it "thinks" it is passing the birth and death dates, but the search results do not correspond to the limits expressed.

I think I can see why. FindAGrave appears to use values like "in", "before" or "after" which are not being passed by Reunion. It could be that these are new since the Reunion search was created. I will contact the guys at Reunion with a proposed change to the search and get back to you.

When I select "Refine last search" (which I assume will be the search processed through Reunion) there are no birth / death dates presented. The results are as I mentioned in my initial post.

I'm not sure why the dates are not retained but the names are. I'll look into this a little but not sure if anything can be done about that.

[Warren White]

Re: FindAGrave web search

I am certain;y no expert but the URL is showing up in your post with a gap in the '1988' it is showing as 19 88, could this be something to do with it?

Cheers

I believe the space was an artifact of my having to mess with the insert so it wouldn't act like a URL. I had to delete some of the characters so it would show up correctly.

When I repeat the search, there isn't a space between 19 and 88.

[Warren White]

Re: FindAGrave web search

I think I can see why. FindAGrave appears to use values like "in", "before" or "after" which are not being passed by Reunion. It could be that these are new since the Reunion search was created. I will contact the guys at Reunion with a proposed change to the search and get back to you.

If you manually fill in the dates (either one), FindAGrave automatically fills in "in" for the modifier.

I will keep my fingers crossed, as this website is a gold mine. Thanks for your help.

[Keith Bage]

Re: FindAGrave web search

If you manually fill in the dates (either one), FindAGrave automatically fills in "in" for the modifier.

I will keep my fingers crossed, as this website is a gold mine. Thanks for your help.

I have been able to resolve the issue with the search locally on my own machine and have advised the Reunion folks of what I believe needs to be chanaged in the search. You'll need to wait for them to review the suggested change and push this out.

The good news is that the new preference options in 10.0.3 should allow for such changes to be pulled down without waiting for the next Reunion maintenance release.

[Keith Bage]

Re: FindAGrave web search

If you manually fill in the dates (either one), FindAGrave automatically fills in "in" for the modifier.

I will keep my fingers crossed, as this website is a gold mine. Thanks for your help.

Warren,

You'll be happy to note that the Reunion folks have responded equally as fast and updated the web search with my suggestions. You can now go to your web preferences and click the "check for new sites" button and your web searches will be updated with the changes.

They also noted that the problem with the dates not sticking when you refine the search is a problem with the website and nothing to do with Reunion.

Regards

Keith

[Warren White]

Re: FindAGrave web search

WOW! That was really fast, and I am happy to report that the search now returns exactly what I want.

My thanks to Keith and the fantastic folks at Leister.