Waseca County History Center

Full-Text Searching: A Friendly Guide Spaces = AND: Search for "Margaret Jones" to find entries with both terms. Vertical Bar | = OR: (the vertical bar is found on your back slash key) Search for "dog | horse" to find entries with either term. Quotes for Exact Matches: Search for "blue glass" to find the exact phrase. + Symbol = All Words: Search for blue+glass to find entries with both words. Combine Quotes and +: Search for "blue jar"+tin to find the phrase and the word. - Symbol = Exclude Words: Search for -wood to exclude entries with "wood." Combine + and -: Search for basket+-willow to find "basket" without "willow." ** Symbol = Wild Card: Search for **Harris to find variations like Harris, Harrisville, etc. A Quick Note on Stop Words: Common words like "a," "an," "the," "and," and "of" are ignored in searches. Happy Searching!