Cold Cases, Etcetera
BLOG SEARCH TIPS
There are two ways to find the posts: archives and search box.
ARCHIVES
The archive lets you browse posts by specific metadata: date, category and tag. It’s a nice feature if you’re only interested in a certain topic like forensics, or you’re just curious.
Filter posts by:
- Date: Year, month
- Category: Broad topics like Forensics or Research.
- Tag: Narrower topics (DNA, plants, forensic genealogy)
Example #1: You’re looking for a post about a homicide you recall happened in the ’70s. Click the ‘1970s’ tag to limit cases to that decade.
Example #2. You want cold cases that involved animal or pet hair. Click the tag “animals” (or do a keyword search).
- Meaning of certain tags:
- time period – for Cases originating during that period (e.g. 1980s)
- academic: post is about a scholarly works (journals, peer-reviewed articles, etc.)
- child (0-17), adult (18+) – victim’s age
- Location (mostly used with specific cases): The blog uses USPS postal abbreviations so Maryland will be US-MD. For other countries, the tag will be the full name, such as Canada. The one exception is United Kingdom where the tag is UK.
- solved/unsolved: status of a cold case
SEARCH BOX
If you don’t have time to rummage through posts, a keyword search may be the quickest way to find what you seek.
- This blog uses the “AND” Boolean operator (meaning the database will look for all terms).
- Searches aren’t case-sensitive: Florida or florida are both ok
- Stemming is allowed. Typing gene will return words like gene(s), genetic(s), genealogy. If you only want “genealogy” then type the full word. Convict finds its variations: convicted, conviction. If you recall a place name but are unsure of the spelling, try typing in part of it. Bern will find “San Bernardino.”
- Quotation marks can be used to search a phrase but may eliminate useful hits. Example: “dna extraction” will look for those words in that exact order. But dna extract (no quotes and stemmed) will find this: … a new technique to extract dna —or this: …a new dna extraction technique.
- For a focused search, type the most unique word you remember in the post. For a small blog like this one, that approach may be very effective.
- For example, if you remember a Maryland case where a child was found in creek under a bridge, start by typing “creek.” Or type, “bridge.”
- If you recall a case about an identical twin, type: identical twin or twin.
- Highlighting search terms: When search results appear, use your browser’s “Find” feature to see where those terms are on the page. Generally, Ctrl-F is the the shortcut key for Windows. On Macs, use Command+F. Researcher’s Tip: Google Chrome automatically highlights all search terms when you use the Find option. Other browsers like Mozilla Firefox may have a “Highlight All” button; click it to instantly see each occurrence of your keywords on the page–either as a yellow highlight or other hue you pick. Check your browser’s HELP page for more info on the Find feature.