Search Help

The Alberta Missing Persons website may be searched using a variety of methods. The terms you enter in the search window will retrieve results based on text found on the specific missing person profile sheets. Below is a breakdown of a few search strategies along with examples for each.
(Please note that the examples are fictitious)

After your search has been completed, in order to view individual missing persons profile sheets, please click on the links on the left side of the screen in the Search Results section.

From the drop-down menu to the left of the Search button, you can choose search types for:

all of the words or any of the words

To find a list of words or phases

• use "quotation marks" around phrases
  Example: “John Smith” retrieves all documents containing the exact name text string) of John Smith
  
• add + in front of any word or phrase to include it in the results
  
• add - in front of any word or phrase or to exclude it in the results
  Example: -Edmonton +"John Brown" wWill return only those documents which contain the exact name of John Brown, but do not have Edmonton in them.

exact phrase

Finds a single phrase (quotation marks are optional)

Examples: James Smith

               “James Smith”

boolean

Finds a structured group of words or phrases linked by and, or, not, w/

• and means both terms are present
  
• or means either term is present
  
• not means one term is present but the other is not
  
• w/ means one term should be found within a specified number of words of the other

Examples:
Jane Marie Brown – the entire phrase must be present
Jill White and Greg Green – both phrases must be present
James Brown or Tina Turner – either phrase must be present
Lindsay Little and not Tina Turner - only Lindsay Little must be present
Jack w/5 Black – Jack must occur within 5 words of Black
John not w/27 Doe - John must not occur within 27 words of Doe

wildcard characters

• ? matches any single character
  Example: Smyth? matches Smyths or Smythe
• * matches any number of characters
  Example: Sm*h matches Smyth Smith and Smooth

Search Features

Stemming

Finds grammatical variations on endings

Example:
Searching for the name Smyth using the stemming feature returns the results of Smyth, Smythe, Smyths, Smythes

phonic searching

Finds words that sound alike, like Smythe in a search for Smith