Queen Victoria's Journals allows you to combine your search terms so you can target your search at more specific areas. For example, from the Search page you can find records in Queen Victoria's Journals which contain the words 'battle' and 'Waterloo'.
You combine your search terms using the following special keywords, called Boolean operators:
The AND operator retrieves all records that contain the search terms it separates. However, this type of search normally retrieves fewer results than if you searched for one of the terms on its own.
e.g. battle AND Waterloo.
If you have entered search terms in more than one search box, Queen Victoria's Journals treats them as if they were combined using the AND operator.
Note: if you want to search for the word 'and' in a phrase, such as 'sang and acted', you should type the phrase into the search box and enclose it in double quotation marks; for example, "sang and acted".
The OR operator retrieves all records that contain either or both of the search terms it separates. This type of search retrieves more results than if you searched for one of the terms on its own.
e.g. army OR militia.
If you select more than one search term from a list, Queen Victoria's Journals automatically combines them in the search box using this operator.
The NOT operator retrieves all records that contain the first search term but not the second.
e.g. battle NOT Waterloo
Queen Victoria's Journals not only allows you to search for a particular word or phrase, but also enables you to refine your searches by using a proximity operator to look for words that are close to each other.
The NEAR operator retrieves records containing terms that within 10 words of each other, and are in any order.
e.g.: piano NEAR orchestra
Queen Victoria's Journals allows you to use the * (asterisk) wildcard character to find variations on a word ending. * can represent zero, one or more characters.
e.g. arm* (for arms, armory, armour, army)
You can also use the ? wildcard character to represent zero, one or more characters anywhere in a word.
e.g. wom?n (for woman, women)