fulltext_search
Read-only
Search handwriting-recognized text in deeds, wills, probate, and court page images to find names or phrases, including witnesses, heirs, and neighbours that indexes miss.
Instructions
Search the machine-read text of page images: deeds, wills, probate, court files.
Finds a name or phrase anywhere on a page, including the witnesses, heirs and neighbours no index names. Each hit is one page image, with the passages that matched.
The text is handwriting recognition, a machine reading: open the image with get_image_links, read it yourself, and cite the image, never the text. Coverage is partial, so no result proves nothing. Each hit gives the citation path: collection, record title and image ark.
Requires an access token.
Input Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| name | No | A name, matched only against the names recognised on each page. A plain name is searched as a phrase; same syntax as text. | |
| text | No | Words to find anywhere in a page's machine-read text. Every word or "quoted phrase" must match unless you use OR; -word excludes, and * is a wildcard after at least three letters (Will*). Words match as spelled: try the variants a clerk might have written. | |
| count | No | Pages to return (1-100). | |
| facets | No | Also return counts by collection, century, place and record type. | |
| offset | No | Pages to skip, for paging. | |
| filters | No | Filters copied from a previous call's facets, e.g. 'c.recordPlace1=on&f.recordPlace0=10'. Place, record type and century narrow only this way, and they match the collection's description, not the page. | |
| image_group | No | An image group (DGS film) number, to search one volume, e.g. '008190429'. | |
| collection_id | No | Restrict to one collection, by a result's or a facet's collection id. |