SEARCHING FOR WORDS OR PHRASES -- "Full Text of Entries"

The order in which you enter words is NOT important.  

derby kentucky 

gets the same result as

kentucky derby

The default search looks for keywords across the full text of all entries and gives a retrieval list that consists of entry titles and is sorted into a relevancy ranking.  

Relevancy ranking is a useful way to sort the results of some searches such as 'lexington'...

1. LEXINGTON (CITY)
2. LEXINGTON CEMETERY
3. LEXINGTON & OHIO RAILROAD
4. LEXINGTON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
5. LEXINGTON (HORSE)
6. LEXINGTON LIGHT INFANTRY
7. LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER
8. LOUISVILLE
9. CINCINNATI ARCH
10. UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY

...and not as useful for sorting the results of other searches such as 'race'.

1. OAKLAND RACE COURSE 
2. LEXINGTON (CITY) 
3. GENERAL ASSEMBLY 
4. CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE 
5. THOMPSON, HUNTER STOCKTON 
6. KENTUCKY FUTURITY 
7. COURT SYSTEM 
8. KEENELAND 
9. MAN O' WAR 
10. KENTUCKY DERBY 

For searches with large retrieval sets, there will be 50 entry titles per results page, and a navigational bar at the bottom of the list allows you to move from page to page.

< Prev -- 1 2 3 4 -- Next > 

FIELDED SEARCHING -- "People" | "Places" | "Organizations" | "Dates"

The drop-down menu at the top of the page defaults to the type of search described above.  If you decide to select one of the other options, then you are doing a fielded search, i.e., people, places, organizations, or dates.  

In other words, you are searching an especially created index of the encyclopedia rather than the encyclopedia itself.

For example, one small section of the 'Persons' index would look like this.

   Jorris, H. G.
   Jorris, Herman
   Jorris, James
   Jorris, Ruth Blair
   Jorris, William
   Jory, Jon
   Jost, Christian
   Jouett, Galena (Stockett)

Enter your search in the same manner as the examples given in the drop-down menu to achieve the best results.

People (e.g. Lincoln, Abraham)

However, with the example above as a Person fielded search, you could still get good retrieval by entering 'Lincoln' by itself or 'Abraham' by itself.

CASE SENSITIVITY

Searches in the encyclopedia are NOT case sensitive.

These search phrases are all equivalent:

   daniel boone
   Daniel Boone
   DANIEL BOONE

TRUNCATION

A fielded search is automatically truncated at both the front and the back of the text that you enter.

pine    (with the 'Organization' field selected)

retrieves both

Philippine Expeditionary Force 

and

Pineville First Methodist Church 

The percent symbol % may be inserted to retrieve variant spellings. 

thea%    (with the 'Organization' field selected)

retrieves

Actors Theatre of Louisville
Brown Theater 
Buckingham Theater 'the Buck' 
Central Park Theatre 
Children's Theatre 
City Theatre 
Casino Theater 
Empire Theater 
Ford's Theatre 

STOP WORDS

The following common words are not retrieved by the search software.