NC USGenWeb Archives Search Engine

After you have entered your "Surname" and select a county or all counties,
you will be taken to the next page listing all matches found in the state.
From that page you may refine your search utilizing the "Keywords" search.
Following are tips in using this search tool.


    Keywords:             Match: All              Sort by: Score
                                 Any                       Time
                                 Boolean                   Reverse Score
                                                           Reverse Time

Keywords:

Keywords may be a given name, a surname, or a place name

Match: 

You may enter more than one word in your Keywords field, for example John 
& Adams & Boston

The default "All" will return files that contain all three words. 
Again, it could be a file about John Smith and Willie Adams and contain 
the word Boston as well, but all the terms will be in the file.

The match "Any" turns up files with "John" or "Adams" or "Boston" or all 
combinations of those words. They need not be together and need not refer 
to John & Adams & Boston. 

"Boolean" allows you to create complex queries such as (John and Adams) 
and Boston and not Willie and not Smith - this query would find files 
containing "John" and "Adams" and "Boston" AND do not contain either of 
the words "Willie" and "Smith" 

Sort By: 

Score - the search engine ranks the files by how close the search words 
are to the beginning of the file and how many times the word appears in 
the file. Highest score would be first, lowest score last. Reverse score 
is the opposite. 

Time - newest sorted to the top (helpful if you have already searched for 
something and you go back later and want to see if something new has been 
added). Reverse Time - oldest files first.

Thanks to Joy Fisher for this information.