Searching By Name

Of all the things that are important in this filing system, the MRINs and the metadata are at the top of the list; file-names are at the bottom.

If you're using one of the surname systems without metadata, you'll be searching for names that are in your file-names assuming that you can squash a whole bunch of people into a file-name.

If you're using the MRIN Filing System+, you're probably looking for people by searching keywords/tags. I never search by file-names because I know it won't give me good results. Why? Because all the names attached to a document or photo are not in the file-name.

You can use both systems but you have to use at least one of them to find your files.

Obviously, I'm partial to the metadata approach because it's way less prone to errors and omissions.

The default approach for file-names as described in the book is:
MRIN-Date (1920, 1920s, 1920ca or xxxx) Record type, Name (First name Middle initial(s) Surname)
Maiden names for females
For married couples: (husband's) Surname-(wife's) Surname
For photos, leave out Record Type
Group photos: use the MRIN and name of the oldest person in the group:
(oldest person) & family
& sons
& daughters
& children
& cousin
& siblings
or whatever the case may be.

Keywords/tags will take care of the rest. 

When I very first started out, I was so adverse to long file-names I put names like 0027-1903ca-01 (2) on photos. I've cleaned them up for the sake of clarity but in this system it doesn't actually matter because the MRINs and keywords contain anything you're looking for in that way.

Searching for 'Beeken', I get everything with Beeken anywhere if the Folder path contains the word Beeken. Over 12,000 files. Windows doesn't discriminate unless you tell it to.

If I search for 'tags: Beeken' I get 517 results from having added keyword (tag) metadata to my files. 

If I search for 'name: Beeken' I get less results because not all my file-names contain Beeken. There's all kinds of obvious reasons for that. For instance a Beeken female is in a census record listed under her husband's name. Or a Beeken child is in a census record under his uncle's name. Or he's in a group photo that's filed under the MRIN folder of the oldest person in the photo who's not a Beeken. He's in the keywords (tags) but not the file-name.  

There are other things that can get in your way. For instance searching for 'Harris' will also bring up anyone called Harrison. If the search term is put into double-quotes, as "Harris", it will just look for Harris as a whole word.

My marriage records are named as MRIN-date marriage, Surname-Surname, eg. 0345-1939 marriage, Bailey-Beeken. So, if I'm looking for the husband "Marion W Bailey" specifically I won't find this in the search results for 'name: Beeken'. A keyword/tag search will find it though.

There's a nifty box in Windows under the Search tab that shows more options for narrowing down searches. For instance I wouldn't want to search just 'west' when I'm looking for my West surname because I would get everything else that has West in it; West Virginia for example. So I search 'tags: WEST' to narrow it down.

If I want to go the other way and search for WEST that's not a surname I would search West minus West as a keyword i.e. WEST - tags: WEST 

WEST (1,568 results)
tags: WEST (518 results)
WEST - tags: WEST (1,050 results)

The point of all this is that you can only find what's in your files. Consistency is key. Make up your own 'rules' and stick with them so you know what you can do with searches and what you can't. This system was designed to cover a range of options.