Searching on CWGC - Exact, Close & All Matches

[RussT]

Perhaps this feature has been there a while but I have just noticed that when you conduct a search within CWGC, even when using quite general search terms, the output comes in 3 separate lists - identified and listed under the Tabs entitled "Exact Matches", "Close Matches" & "All Matches" - see some example outputs below.

I was searching using the very general terms "First World War", "Machine Gun Corps" and "United Kingdom".

I was amazed to see outputted/displayed that just 1632 men died whilst serving with MGC (see first image below), which I knew had to be incorrect. I couldn't work out what I (or they) were doing wrong until I noticed the tabs along the top of the output results screen. When I clicked on the "Close Matches" tab, it revealed there were 15984 men who died (see second image below), which was far more credible.

A few observations from this trial:

1) There appears to be no logical reason why, in this example, 1632 men have been split off from the actual Total (termed "Close Matches") and listed under what the CWGC term "Exact Matches"

2) The default output gives you just men listed under the "Exact Matches" tab, which could well give you an underestimate of the total number of men for which you are searching - as in this MGC example, which is a very large underestimate.

3) All the men listed under "Exact Matches" appear in the list under "Close Matches" which in turns means that the list under "All Matches" is the same as the list under "Close Matches", making one of these tabs/lists superfluous (at least in this example).

All very daft and highly annoying in my humble view.

Anyone had similar experiences/thoughts/insights?

Russ

 

 

[John(txic)]

I never knew you could carry out such a search - thanks!

 

Maybe that's because I use Geoff's Search Engine for the vast majority of my enquiries?

[RussT]

3 hours ago, John(txic) said:

I never knew you could carry out such a search - thanks!

Maybe that's because I use Geoff's Search Engine for the vast majority of my enquiries?

The CWGC Search Engine has been around for over at least 10 years.

Before then, I also regularly used Geoff's Search Engine (GSE), which was the only option available at the time.

But I no longer use GSE because:

(i) there is no need to given the existence of the CWGC Search Engine.

(ii) GSE only searches on a frozen database that is, I believe, over 10 years old so it neither includes the many 1000s of corrections made to the database since that snapshot was taken nor all of the new commemorations added since then. So if you are conducting general searches, you are risking getting incorrect/incomplete results.

Regards

Russ

[John(txic)]

Didn't know that Russ - thanks for the update.

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

2 hours ago, RussT said:

it neither includes the many 1000s of corrections made to the database since that snapshot was taken

That's not correct.

A soldier I notified them about, has had his commemoration moved from the Brookfield Memorial to the local chapel where he is buried.
There must be more.

[RussT]

Well, GSE has not corrected the many 100s of errors I have informed the CWGC about since circa 2014, which tallies with what appears to be his last up-date in 2012 as per his Search Engine front page. But if yours have been corrected by GSE, then good for you.

 

 

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

On 23/04/2023 at 14:39, RussT said:

Well, GSE has not corrected the many 100s of errors I have informed the CWGC about since circa 2014, which tallies with what appears to be his last up-date in 2012 as per his Search Engine front page. But if yours have been corrected by GSE, then good for you.

 

 

Sorry Russ T.

I'm wrong, you were referring to Geoff's Search Engine.  I misinterpreted GSE as CWGC. Apologies.

[RussT]

Ok, I thought it was odd that you had somehow managed to get a change/addition to Geoff's old frozen database.

Regards

Russ