This search form is aimed at a general or "full" search of all entries of our database.
By entering a name and narrowing down the matches with the other personal parameters, or the date if necessary, users can find all types of involvement of every person contained within the database, be it subscriptions to companies, trade with their stocks or insurance transactions.
The advantage of this searchfield over the other, more specalized searchfields is its ability to more quickly uncover the diverse range of acitivties that contemporaries were often involved in. That Joseph de Moor, for example, subscribed to the Emden Company in 1720 and in the same year also traded in stocks of the Middelburg Company becomes immediately visible without having to consult each searchfield individually.
One downside to this method, and the reason why specific searchfields for different acitivies are provided, is the lack of specified search parameters which can be provided in this more general context. Filtering your search according to insurance rates, just to name one example, makes little sense if the goal is to also find instances of stock market activity.
Notes:
- You do not need to fill out every search input! Simply use those that are interesting for answering your own question(s).
- Most sources do not reveal all parameters, which leads to "unspecified" entries.
- There is no option to enter days when searching for a specific date, because the searchfield would then require you to provide one, even if you do not have this information. Searching for a month is a quick way to narrow your results down to a fairly managable number, especially when paired with other parameters. Using the date range you might be as specific or as general in your date search as you wish.
- When defining a date range, make sure to always set the starting date to the last day of the month prior to the first month you are interested in; e.g.: if you wish to search for subscriptions/stock trades/etc. between the 1st of August 1720 and the 1st of November 1720, the first date must be the 31st of July 1720. This is because the database automatically sets the day to "00" if it is unknown. This means that entries from August for which the day is unknown will not be found if you begin your search on the 1st.
