Geoffs Search Engine for ww2

[Owen]

Ron,
I choose ROYAL ARTILLERY in Regiment/Corps: box and put 49th in Unit text:
and got one.
CWGC :: Casualty Details

[geoff501]

Originally Posted by Ron Goldstein

Hi Geoff

I know one comrade who is buried in Italy, I have in fact visited his grave at Cassino.

His name is Geoffrey Burnard and on the CWGC site his unit is listed as 49 Lt. A.A. Rgt,
(Exactly as that, including the spaces).

Using the same criteria I tried to find other war dead from the same regiment but no joy.

What am I doing wrong?

Ron,

This is a little quirk of the database. For some reason, I had problems with the WW1 data with dots - so I stripped them out! The WW2 version works the same.
If you enter 49 Lt AA it should work.
Some of the entries are prefixed with a Bty number, these will be found also since this text field looks for a match anywhere in the data.

The Regiment or Service fields, in this case Royal Artillery, are very consistent made from a fixed list, (selected from the drop down list) but the unit text field can vary and sometimes a stray space or slight difference can lose some records. Not much to be done about this, except the usual search engine rule: enter less data to get more results (but some of these may not be what you want)

Geoff

[geoff501]

Originally Posted by Owen D

Ron,
I choose ROYAL ARTILLERY in Regiment/Corps: box and put 49th in Unit text:
and got one.
CWGC :: Casualty Details

Owen,

A perfect example of what I mentioned:
49th Lt AA
49 Lt AA

Wonder how many variations there are?
Its possible that 49 will find them all (and any other unit that is 49, unfortunately!)

geoff

[Ron Goldstein]

Geoff

Bingo !!!!!

Entering "49 Lt AA" gave me 83 hits, exactly what I was looking for.

Go to the top of the class!

Many thanks

Ron

[geoff501]

Originally Posted by Ron Goldstein

Geoff
Go to the top of the class!

Thanks Ron, my maths teachers never ever said that!
(don't forget Owen's 84th result)

Geoff

[stevew]

Geoff,

Great tool, given me a new lead on a WW1 casualty who has been proving troblesome.

But, I was playing with the WW2 version and was specifically looking for 200 Field Ambulance (I searched on 200 Field Amb), and returned 2 results, neither of which was the one I was after. If I searched on date and not unit I get the right man. I am doing something wrong on the unit search?

Steve

[geoff501]

Originally Posted by stevew

Geoff,

Great tool, given me a new lead on a WW1 casualty who has been proving troblesome.

But, I was playing with the WW2 version and was specifically looking for 200 Field Ambulance (I searched on 200 Field Amb), and returned 2 results, neither of which was the one I was after. If I searched on date and not unit I get the right man. I am doing something wrong on the unit search?

Steve

Steve,

The only thing you are doing wrong is trying to use a search engine - they are stupid

I tried a different entry, select regiment RAMC and enter 200 in the unit text field. This found 3: Armstrong, Dawson and Manning. I presume the extra one was Armstrong. Looking a bit further into this, when I collected the index, Armstrong's unit entry was 200 Field Amb - with a double space between 200 and Field. That's why it failed. CWGC must have subsequently edited this, since their record now only has a single space.
I then tried searching 200 Fieldwith a double space, no regiment, and got two results. The new one was Drv. Thompson, who is listed as RASC not RAMC, so he did not come out on my first search.
It sometimes helps to enter less text in a field and select a regiment if possible. When I selected RAMC, it filtered out 200 Field Coy etc - but did not find the RASC man.
I removed dots from the data since their use was inconsistent, perhaps I should have done the same for double spaces.

Geoff

[geoff501]

Steve,

I've done some work on the unit text index. There were double spaces in the unit text of 555 records, which have now been removed. With over 450,000 records in the system, you were unlucky to find one in such a short search. Thanks for the feedback.
I now get 4 results on this search.

Geoff

edit: I've only done the UK units so far.

[stevew]

Geoff,

Brilliant...............I'll try and bear in mind less maybe better

[geoff501]

Originally Posted by geoff501

edit: I've only done the UK units so far.

Just now fixed the others....the search engine is now slightly less stupid