Help section

Search by persons

This form allows you to search for individuals or corporate bodies involved in cases, regardless of their roles within those cases. To perform a persons search, fill in as many or as few of the following fields as you wish - no fields are mandatory - and click on the 'Search' button at the bottom of the screen.

If you make a mistake and wish to start again, clicking on the 'Clear' button at the bottom of the screen will present you with a new blank form.

Surname

Enter the surname of the individual. For titled individuals, enter the family surname only and enter any titles under Title (see below). For the Attorney-general, enter the family surname of the Attorney-general in question and enter 'Attorney-general' under Office (see below). For Welsh surnames, such as ap John, enter the surname in natural order and do not invert it, e.g.

For corporate bodies, see below

Forename(s)

Enter the forename(s) of the individual, e.g.

Personal styles which usually precede the forename(s) should be entered with the forename(s), e.g.

Similarly if the person in question is known as the elder, senior, the younger or junior, these phrases should be entered after the forename(s), e.g.

Surname and Forename(s) for corporate bodies

The main element of corporate body names should be entered under Surname, modifiers under Forename, e.g.

Sex

To select 'Male' or 'Female', click on the down arrow at the right hand side of the box and select the appropriate option from the list which will appear by clicking on it.

Type of Person

Select the appropriate option by clicking on it.

Title

Enter any peerage title held by the individual in full. Latin titles should be rendered in English, e.g.

Peerage titles have been taken from Cokayne's Complete Peerage. 'Knight' and 'baronet' should not be listed as titles, but rather be entered under Status (see below).

Office

Enter any office held by the individual, e.g.

Occupation

Enter any occupation carried out by the individual, e.g.

Status

Enter any descriptions of individuals, which are not titles, offices or occupations, e.g.

Role

If you have entered 'Other' under Type of Person (see above), you can further define this role, by entering an appropriate term here, e.g.

testator

Helpful Hints

If you attempt a search for a person and do not find who you are searching for, despite being certain of your information, please be aware that searches will fail unless they match completely the contents of the database. It may therefore be necessary to try searches on several different versions of, for example, the surname you require, e.g. Smith, Smythe, Smithe etc.

To help with this problem it is possible to undertake wildcard searches in both the surname and forename fields by adding an asterix after a portion of the name in which you are interested, e.g.

A search on 'Smith*' will also pick up Smithe
A search on 'John*' will also pick up John the elder, or John junior, or John the younger etc

It should be noted, however, that using the wildcard '*' will slow down response times considerably.

It should also be noted that the wildcard cannot be used before a portion of a name, so if you were not sure whether, for example, a forename had been entered as 'Lord Charles' or just 'Charles', it would be necessary to search on both options. A search on '*Charles' would not work.

Advanced Searches

If you wish to perform a search combining fields in this form with those in any of the other four search forms, follow the advanced search instructions