The text fields on this search form support two wildcard characters, "?" and "*". The "?" character matches any single character, and "*" matches any string of characters. The given pattern must match at word boundaries in the associated data field. So, for example, the pattern "wood" will match a surname of "Wood", but not "Atwood" or "Woodbury". The pattern "wood*" will match "Wood" or "Woodbury", but not "Atwood". The pattern "*wood*" will match "Atwood", "Wood", and "Woodbury".
Because of the nature of the software programs used to maintain the data and to build the website, ships are entered as 'people'. If you enter the word 'Ship' in the
Surname field, the search result will show a list of all the ships in the project. If you enter the name of the ship in the First & Middle Name field, the individual ship will be the search result. However, because ships' names appear variously in the record, the spelling you enter may not be in the project. Searching for 'Ship' in the surname field is therefor the better option.
