Tips for searching the Loyalist Database

Keyword search strategies help search more effectively.

Keep in Mind

Contemporary language and place names are also to be kept in mind when searching; these reflect the time period created or viewpoint of the creator. This also includes the Collection's catalogue descriptions or summaries of each title which have been written over several decades; it is an ongoing process to update these. An example would be moving away from using the term "slave" to "enslaved."

Most of the titles in The Loyalist Collection catalogue are summaries of content and vary in the detail they include - from very sparse descriptions to lots of detail.

Search Strategies

There are no subject field categories as in the Libraries' catalogue, so options to improve results may include:

1. Try a variety of terms.

2. Check out the Finding Aid fields in potential records to search within for more detailed content, Many collections are arranged chronologically, especially government documents, so looking through a brief period of documents may work fine; but if tracing a topic over time, suggest using an available finding aid. (There are 2 fields - one may contain links to aids found elsewhere on the web; and the other is the Electronic Finding Aid field in which is a pdf finding aid uploaded to the record. They are not searchable when doing a catalogue search; but you may click "Ctrl" and "F" buttons on your keyboard to search within these.) Types of finding aids include an index, document listing, a calendar which includes a summary of each document, or a microfilm shelf list which tells you what volumes or years are on each microfilm reel.

3. Use the "Browse" tab and search by creator (person, family, organisation, government department for example), or by the 5 categories by which the Collection is organised (church, family, military, public or government by place, or special collections). Browsing may help not only to find a list of collections, but show the way records are worded.

4. Boolean searches to search more specifically:

Understanding the catalogue records and using the field labels. The following field labels or sections listed and described below are found in each of the catalogue records.  By using codes as one option, you can search keywords just in those fields or sections of the record in the default search screen. Alternately you could use the Advanced Search option tab.

*Exception - Archival Reference Number: The catalogue has a field or section in each record for an Archival Reference Number, which provides the catalogue reference number from the institution holding the originals of published material we hold. It is suggested generally to use, instead of codes below, the first letter and number grouping, with no space between. Example is wanting to search for a collection you know comes from Britain's National Archives and found in the War Office (WO) department with their reference number WO 12/8741 - better to type "WO12"without the specific volume number; another example is material from Library and Archives Canada MG 23, C6, for more successful search, only type "MG23."