HOW
TO BEST USE THE
RECORDS ACCESS SITE
This is a general guide as
to how to best use the Franklin Registry of Deeds web records site. This guide, used along with our "Guide To How Names Are Indexed In The Computer", should help
you effectively and accurately use our computer system for your title
searches.
There is no
substitute for reading the directions on the screen of the computer. We attempt to highlight all recent changes
and additions to our program, but, a periodic review of the instructions on the
screen can save even the most experienced computer user a lot of frustration.
This guide will not repeat the instructions on the screens. Its purpose is to give you hints and methods
to enable you to use the computer most efficiently and effectively.
1. When
searching for an individual enter
the last name(surname) first. Then press the TAB key. Then enter the first name(given
name).
When searching for a corporation, company, town, state, county,
trust, club or association treat it as one last name(surname). Do not enter anything in the given name
field.
2. When
searching by name, the less information entered the broader the search. The more information entered the narrower the
search. I suggest beginning a name search
by entering the LAST NAME ONLY. If you
are entering an uncommon name, a long name, or an unusually spelled name I
suggest entering just the first few letters of the name to start the search. By doing this initially you can make sure you
will get all the possible listings for your subject. After you scan through the broad list you can
then reset the screen and narrow your search by adding a given name.
EXAMPLE:
You want to do an index search for John F. Meade.
First enter: MEADE With that entry you get a list of every
person or company that has MEADE in first five letters of his/her/its name.
If you first entered: MEADE
tab JOHN F
You would only get a listing of people with
that exact name and you would miss any entries that did not include a middle
initial.
*Reminder: The Registry enters names in the computer as
they appear on the original instrument.
If the original instrument has a typo, a misspelling, is missing a
middle initial, etc., you could miss an important recording if you make your
search too specific. Check the Indexing Guide to see how we treat
special cases and...Let's be careful out there!
3. When
you do want to enter a middle initial for a name just enter it one space after
the given name and do not use a period.
4. Do
not enter titles, such as Trustee, Attorney, Conservator, Administrator,
Doctor, Mr., Ms., Mrs., Jr., Sr., III, Executor, etc. when searching a
name. Just enter the name without a
title.
5. Agencies,
divisions, departments of a Town, County, State or the
6. If
you only know part of the last name (surname) but all of the first(given)
name, you can enter the first few letters of the last name and enter a * and then press the tab key and enter
the first name. By putting a * entry at
the end of your surname entry the computer will search for all possible names
that start with the letters you entered in the surname field that also have the
given name you entered.
Example: Anthony Armstrong-Jones. You are looking Anthony Armstrong-Jones but
you can only remember the first part of the hyphenated last name and the first
name. Type Armstrong* in the
surname field, press the Tab Key and then type Anthony in the given name
field.
7. Do
not assume that you have seen all of the information for your specific search
request until you see a message at the bottom of the screen that says: Last
matching name is displayed.