Use Advanced Search to find people by details such as dates, places, or facts, as well as their names. Open the Search page and click Advanced Search.
To perform an advanced search, you need to enter the "rules" that RootsMagic will use to perform the search. The rules can include any combination of ancestors or descendants of a starting person, genetic lines, people in a group, information about the people (birth date, death place, etc.), and several other options. Click the Find button to enter the rules you want to search, and RootsMagic will display the "Search Rules" form.
Enter the rules you want in the Search Rules, click OK, and RootsMagic will search for and display any matches on the right side of the screen.
From the result list, you can:
•Click Edit to open the Edit Person form for the highlighted person
•Click Go To to switch to the People Page and select the highlighted person
•Click Clear results to clear the results from the list
•Click Print to print the results. This is especially useful because you can save the print results to an Excel or CSV file
•Click Customize to choose what columns to display for the results. This works just like customizing the People List view.
•Click Group to create a rules group for the current search and results. You will be asked for the name for the new group.
•Click Show alternate names to show or hide any alternate names for people
•Click the header above any column to sort the results by that column
Saving Search Rules
If there are searches that you perform more than once (especially complicated ones), you can click the "Saved searches" to bring up a list of any searches you have saved, as well as the option to create new saved searches. In addition to the rules for the search, you can enter a name for the search. To create a saved search, click New and then enter the search rules as described above. If you already have a current set of rules selected, they will appear for you to save.
To reuse an existing search just open Saved Searches and select the search you want to run.
Check unexpected results
If the result is empty, remove the most restrictive rule and rerun the search. If it is too broad, check for an Or rule that adds people after an earlier restriction. Compare the rules with a person you know should match.
A saved search remembers the rules you chose. Running it again can find different people if you have added or changed information in your tree. Check the new results. See Search Rules for an example of combining rules.
