Here, you can find instructions and tips for effectively searching in the sources and lifecourses found on the page.
You can search in two ways:
You can also choose whether to limit your search results to either life courses or person records.
You can filter your search results afterwards (see below under “Filtering”) if you get many results, and you can also adjust your search criteria afterwards.
The search results include both life courses and person records by default, unless you have deselected one option.
Life courses are blue and can therefore be distinguished from person records. Person records are light-colored and have different icons and colors to improve clarity. For visually impaired or blind users, this is indicated with text that can be read aloud.
There are person records from the following sources:
Read more about the sources here.
With specific search, you can refine your search using different search criteria. You will find specific search both on the search front page and at the top of the search results in the blue area. Specific search includes the following criteria:
Please note that not all person records contain information for all search criteria. For example, if you search by year of birth, records without that information will not appear in the results. Similarly, gender is not entered in all sources. If you select ‘female’ as a criterion, records without gender information will not be included.
A life course consists of a series of person records linked together in pairs. The name, year of birth, and place of birth shown in the search results and at the top of the life course page are taken from the most recent person record containing such information.
You can click on individual person records in the life course to view the full entered information.
All links between person records in a life course are displayed in a diagram on the right. Click on a line to see how the link was created and provide feedback on its reliability.
The information from the entered sources is divided into two versions:
Where possible, person records include a link back to the archive where the source is stored, allowing you to view the original handwritten text. Click “View original source” under the original entries. Unfortunately, this direct link is not available for all sources.
If the person record comes from a source where multiple people are recorded together, you can view related records in a separate tab. Other people in the same household from the same census can be found under the “Household” tab. For other sources, the tab is called “Related persons” and shows others involved in the same event, such as parents of a newborn child. The current record is highlighted, and the order reflects how people were listed in the source.
You can filter your search results using some of the same parameters as your search, as well as by source type. For example, if you only want to see life courses that include censuses, you can select that option. If you choose multiple filters:
The number next to each filter indicates how many person records it will include. It does not indicate the number of life courses.
You can find the filter function above the search results. Filters are a good way to make large result sets more manageable.
Life courses are created automatically using various methods that are continuously developed and improved. This means you may encounter life courses that seem unreliable because the person records most likely do not refer to the same individual. Such cases are inevitable with automated methods, where it is not possible to manually verify every single link.
You can help improve the linking methods by providing feedback on life courses. See how to give feedback on life courses here.
There will be errors and misunderstandings in the data. This may be because person records have been entered over many years using different practices and by many different people, or because they have been read automatically without subsequent proofreading.
If you discover an error, you can report it to the archive where the source is stored, but not to Link-Lives. This ensures that the correction is made in the right place.
The methods used to create life courses are continuously improved: they produce more and more reliable links, resulting in more accurate and complete life courses.
By default, you always search the newest version of life courses. However, if you have saved a direct link to a life course from an earlier version, the link will still work—for a period of time at least. You can also choose to include “older” life courses created with previous methods in your search (by unchecking ‘Include only newest methods’).
