Search Engine for HVVA, Three Rivers, and Associated Sites

Search this site or the web powered by FreeFind Site search Web search

Remember to use all VARIATIONS on a name. Spelling was often very inconsistent and the people writing the names wrote them as they sounded to their ear.

EXAMPLE: The name Van Driessen. To be sure to see all the information, the name should be searched under VanDriessen (no space), Van Driessen (space), Van Driesen, VanDriesen. All the variations will yield different information. One family name (Herkimer), I have been told, has 100 variations, some don't look like Herkimer.

New articles are constantly being posted but may not have been indexed by the search engine. The site is spidered once a week.

This search will tell you in which article the name appears and give you a link to that page, but not to the exact spot on the page. Any text within a graphic will not be found by the search engine, sorry, the search engine cannot scan a graphic.

When you are trying to locate exactly where on a page a name occurs, go to the top of your browser and click on "Edit". Select "Find on this page" and then type in some of the variations of the name you are looking to locate.

You can also locate names in the PDF files, by doing the above OR using your Ctrl key and pressing the letter F. In the PDF files the program doesn't always read the letters correctly.

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OTHER TIPS

By default the search engine tries to locate pages which have exact matches for all of the words entered in your search query. If that fails, it then tries to locate pages which contain any words in your search query. If that happens a short message is displayed at the top of the search results indicating this has been done.

In addition, there are several ways to modify the default search behavior.

1. phrase search

The search engine supports three types of phrase search.
To match an exact phrase, use quotes around the phrase
Example: "search engine"

To match a near (within a couple of words) phrase, use square brackets [around the words]
Example: [search engine]

To match a far (within several words) phrase, use braces { around the words }
Example: {search engine}

2. + and - qualifiers

If you prepend a word with + that word is required to be on the page.
If you prepend a word with - that word is required to not be on the page.
Example: +always -never

3. * wildcard

If a query word ends with a * all words on a page which start the same way as that query word will match.
Example: gift*

4. ? wildcard

If a query word contains a ? any character will match that position.
Example: b?g

5. boolean search

You can use the following boolean operators in your search: AND, OR, NOT. These operators MUST be in capital letters.
Example: (contact AND us) OR (about AND us)

All of these techniques can be combined: +alway* -ne??r*