Find
The Find Feature
Find Results
Search Methodology
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Advanced Find
Finding People by Name
Finding People by ID Number
Find and Replace
Results Sidebar
Sharing the Find Results
The Find feature uses one small search box to look for any word (or words) in your family file. So, just think of what you want to find and let Reunion do the work.
To use the Find feature, click Find in the navbar or press Command-F on the keyboard.
find

Reunion's Find feature will search for word(s) in...
- All person and family fields...
- Names, events, places, notes, memos, and facts.
- Citations.
- Contact info.
- Media descriptions and memos.
- Logs.
- Sources.
The results of searches appear immediately, in the Results sidebar.
Note: |
If you need a more sophisticated search (for example, a search limited to one particular field or a search for people matching a certain criteria or a multi-condition search), then use the Advanced Find feature. Or, when looking for a person by name, you may prefer using the People sidebar. |
Find Results
Reunion will present the results of the search in the Results sidebar (and/or List window). The results show the record and field matching your search and can also take you directly there — to the relevant record/field in the family file.
The Results show...
- The names of people, families, sources, places and logs where matches are found.
- The name of the field where the data was found (and an associated icon).
- An excerpt from the data that was found.

Working with the Find Results...
- Items in the Find Results are grouped into sections for People, Families, Sources, Places and Logs (in that order). Disclosure triangle buttons will drill deeper into each section, if desired.
- Single-clicking names of people/families in the Results will navigate to the family view for that person/family.
- Double-clicking the line under each person/family will open the Edit Person or Edit Family window, and put the cursor right where the data was found.
- In the example above, double-clicking "Burial place: Lost Creek..." under the name Hazel SPITLER would open the Edit Person panel for Hazel SPITLER and the cursor would wind up in the Burial place field.
- In the example above, double-clicking the "Misc Notes" line under Heinrich MEYER would open the Edit Person > Notes panel for Heinrich MEYER.
- Double-clicking a source opens the Source window.
- Double-clicking a log opens the Logs window.
- When the Results include a Places section, then double-clicking a place entry would open the Places sidebar, with the place selected.
- Option-clicking a triangle button will open/close all sections.
- If there are 15 or fewer results in the list, all triangles will be expanded by default.
- Control-click people in the Results list to show the Person menu.
A QuickView icon appears to the right of people in the Results list. Click this to see the QuickView window.
- In the Find Results example below, double-clicking any line that says "Media description" would open a person's Media window to the relevant picture.

To recall any of the last 10 searches, click the Results menu button
in the Results sidebar. Reunion will re-do the search.

The Search Methodology
The Find feature will search just about everywhere in your family file. However, to provide the best results, the name fields (of people) are searched in a different manner than other fields.
- When searching the names of people, Reunion uses the "Starts with" search methodology and all four name fields are searched collectively (First/Mid, Last, Prefix, Suffix). This means that Reunion is looking at the beginning of each word in a person's name for matches. The order of words in your search text doesn't matter. Place fields are searched in the same manner.
- When searching in larger fields (any field not limited to 256 characters) such as note fields, the "Contains" search methodology is used. This means that Reunion is looking for a string of characters (including spaces) anywhere within fields. In this case, punctuation matters.
Examples:
- Searching for: by rev
- Would find a person named: Reverend Bystander.
- Would find a place named: Byron Revere Canyon, CA.
- Would find this string in a person's Notes: Married by Rev. Summerfield.
- Would not find this string in a person's Notes: By, Golly the Reverend Jones.
- Searching for: rev by
- Would find a person named: Reverend Bystander.
- Would find a place named: Byron Revere Canyon, CA.
- Would not find this string in a person's Notes: Married by Rev. Summerfield.
- Would not find this string in a person's Notes: By, Golly the Reverend Jones.
Note about quotation marks: Single, double, "smart," and "dumb" quotes are treated as one and the same.
For example, a search for "Leroy" (quotes included) will find...
- "Leroy" <- double quotes.
- ‟Leroy” <- double smart quotes.
- 'Leroy' <- single quotes.
- ‘Leroy’ <- single smart quotes.
- "Leroy' <- mixed types of quotes.
Finding Other Find Features
Reunion has several "find" features: the Find feature described in this chapter, the Advanced Find, Find Relationship, and Find and Replace.
To access other "find" features in Reunion, click the More button in the Find window or use the little "v" button when clicking Find in the Navbar. See the illustration below.
