How to search

Types of searches

There are three kinds of searches available:

  1. Artifacts only
  2. Highlanders only
  3. Search (both soldiers and artifacts)

Only the third search type will find all instances of the search parameters in BOTH artifacts and Highlanders. The other search types allow you to more narrowly focus your search.

Overview

There are two parts to setting up a search:

  • Creating a filter and
  • Using a ‘search term.’

You can use both a filter and a search term or you can use only a search term or only a filter.

Using filters

A filter allows you to restrict the range of your search. The filters available for each type of search differ:
  • Artifacts only: You can filter by “classifications” and “eras.”
  • Soldiers only: You can filter by “Key appointment,” “Fate” and “Era.”
  • Both: No filters are available.

For each filter

If you select multiple values for a filter option, then the search will look for all records that meet ANY of the selected items. You can also leave the filter selection blank.

Relationship between filters

If you select entries for multiple filters, only database records that meet the requirements of all the filters will be found.

Now, if you click the Submit button without entering anything in the “Search” field, you will get a screen with all of the records that meet your defined search criteria. However, if you also enter a search term in the “Search” box, the search term will be added to your filter.

Search terms

You do not have to set any filters. Simply enter a search term in the “Search” field.

The search will look for matches in the title, content and other fields associated with each record. The search wiil also look for the search term(s) in any attached PDF file. So a record may be included in the search results and you will have to read ALL of the detail in order to see the words that were found by your search term.

You can enter multiple search terms in the search field. For example, if you enter “bent banner” the search will return only those records with both “bent” and “banner.”

You can search for soldiers by service number. Note that service numbers in our database do not have any punctuation or spaces. You should also be aware that officers did not have service numbers until after WW 2.

Search artifacts

Click here to search only artifacts. A variety of filters are available.

Search Highlanders

Click here to search only soldiers. Our database is growing all the time.

Search all

Click here to find all records that contain a search term such as "Marshall" or "DSO"