This criterion will find a single identified organisation.

Choose an item from the drop-down list. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box showing ‘any organisation’.

This criterion is most effective when you know exactly the organisation you are looking for. If you are not sure, or want to find a group of organisations, some of the other criteria may be more useful.

Organisations are listed alphabetically by name, but see the notes below for details of the sorting order.

Notes

• If the organisation’s name is based on a person’s name, the alphabetical sorting is on the basis of the surname – for example, ‘Alfred Bird & Sons’ is listed as ‘Bird & Sons, Alfred’.
• Organisation names starting with an article are sorted alphabetically without the article – so for example ‘The Church Army’ is listed as ‘Church Army, The’.
• Many organisations changed their names from time to time, for example as family businesses passed from generation to generation or new partners joined an existing business. In most cases the different names are listed in Lucerna as separate organisations, with links between them as appropriate, though in a few instances there is one main entry under the name most commonly used for the organisation.
• The history of many organisations is incomplete, so not all name changes or changes of activity have yet been recorded.

This criterion will find all organisations whose name contains a given group of characters.

Type the text you want to find into the box. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box empty.

This search is most useful to find a group of organisations with similar names, or if you are not sure of an organisation’s full name or the spelling of its name.

Notes:

• The search will find exactly the group of characters you enter, including any spaces or punctuation marks, and searches all parts of the organisation’s name.
• Keep your search text as short as you can – as you enter more, your search becomes more specific and you are less likely to find results.
• For some names you may need to try alternative spellings (for example Stephenson or Stevenson), although with a bit of planning you may be able to use a single search (in that example, searching for ‘enson’ would find both spellings of the name, among others).

This criterion will find organisations with a selected main type of activity.

Choose an item from the drop-down list. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box showing ‘any type’.

For the reasons listed in the notes below, this may be most effective when used on its own to identify a group of organisations with similar activities. When applied in conjunction with other criteria there is less chance of finding useful results.

Notes:

• This information is meant only to give a rough idea of the main (or most likely) type of activity, based on other available knowledge about the organisation.
• The types of activity for this criterion are approximate, may not have been consistently applied by different researchers, and may include slightly different descriptions of what is essentially the same activity.
• This information has also not yet been added for all organisation records, so a search using this criterion will not necessarily find all organisations of your chosen type.

This criterion will find organisations recorded as having mainly been active in a specific nation.

Choose an item from the drop-down list. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box showing ‘any nation’.

In some cases, this information is not known for certain or has not been recorded, so this search will not necessarily find a complete record of every organisation from that nation.

Some organisations operated in more than one nation – this criterion is based on a judgement of which was the organisation’s most important location. For more detailed searching by location, use the Based in (town/city) criterion below.

Notes:

• The drop-down list only shows those nations already recorded as having associated organisations.
• In most cases, nations are listed with their modern names and territories, which may or may not have applied at the time of the organisation’s activity – for example ‘Germany’ rather than ‘Prussia’ or ‘Bavaria’.
• The countries of the British Isles are recorded individually (England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales) not as ‘U.K.’, and other semi-independent parts of the United Kingdom (e.g. Channel Islands) are treated as separate countries.

This criterion will find organisations recorded as having been active in a specific city, town or other settlement.

Choose an item from the drop-down list. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box showing ‘any location’.

This criterion is based on the address(es) at which the organisation has been recorded. Some organisations operated in several different locations, either simultaneously or in succession, and can be searched under all the different locations.

In some cases, this information is not known for certain or has not been recorded, so this search will not necessarily find a complete record of every organisation from that location.

Notes:

• The drop-down list only shows those locations already recorded as having associated organisations, arranged alphabetically by the location name.
• To simplify the list only cities, towns, villages and similar named settlements are listed, but the search should find all organisations whose address is or was within a given settlement.
• In most cases, locations are listed with their modern names in the language of the area in which they are located – for example ‘Köln’ rather than ‘Cologne’. We are working on a system to allow searching for a location under alternative names, including names in different languages and from different historical periods.

This criterion will find all organisations recorded as being associated with a specific person.

Choose an item from the drop-down list. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave the box showing ‘any person’.

Some typical connections between a person and organisation include owner/proprietor, partner or employee of a business, or member or officer of a society or club.

Individual people may be connected with several different organisations, and a given organisation may have many people associated with it. Where relevant, a person may be recorded with more than one association with the same organisation (for example a company employee who later became a director).

Notes:

• The drop-down list only shows those people already known to be connected to organisations with Lucerna records.
• In most cases the names of people with connections to a given organisation are simply unknown and will never be identified.
• In some cases the only record of a person’s connection to an organisation is from a minor reference in a source like a newspaper article, and more details of their involvement may not yet be available.

This criterion will find organisations known to have been active in a specific year (or range of years).

Choose one or more years from the drop-down lists as appropriate. If you don’t want to apply this criterion, leave both boxes showing ‘any date’.

In many cases, this information is not known for certain or has not been recorded.

This search can be useful for getting a representative sample of organisations from a given period, but the results should not be taken as a complete record of everything from the year(s) you enter.

Notes:

• The years in the drop-down lists are just those for which organisations have been recorded, not a complete list of all possible years.
• To find organisations active in a specific year, choose the same year from both lists.
• To find organisations active in or after a specific year, choose a year from the first list but leave the second box showing ‘any date’.
• To find organisations active in or before a specific year, leave the first box showing ‘any date’ but choose a year from the second list.
• To find organisations active at any time in a range of years, choose different years from both lists.