We regret that constraints at Tripod forced us to breakdown the Laughter Tree into multiple pages but there are benefits to the new design. We now have a site search engine AND the pages download much more quickly. However, with the new approach you now must do a search to produce a list of all pages containing a word, place, name, date, etc., AND then do a FIND within each page. Sound complicated? Not at all... Its a simple process:

1. Search for a name, place, date, etc.
2. Click directly to a page
3. Do a FIND within that page (See HELP PAGE above)
4. Use BACK button to return to "Search results" page
5. Click to the next page
6. Repeat FIND in new page (FIND argument is still in FIND box)

Below is an image of "Search: results" produced by a site SEARCH for the name "Zedick." It is irrelevant whether the name is entered with capitalization or in lower case: the results will be the same.

For information on more complex searches, it is important to click on SEARCH HELP below the "Search Laughter Site" button because often the results can be a little overwhelming and confusing. For example, if a search is for "John," nearly every page on this web site (over 250) will be listed on the results page. On the other hand, if a search is for "John Laughter," the "John's" with middle initials will be missed. However, there are techniques described in SEARCH HELP to avoid these problems.

How to read the "results" page:

SEARCH will locate EVERY instance of the search argument, i.e., name, date, place, etc. Summary information for each page (file) containing at least ONE instance of the search argument(s) is displayed with a reference number from "1" to whatever. The first line of each summary shows the page's title. The second line ends with the actual computer FILE name, i.e., laughtername.html as in the summary number 1 in the image:

The computer file name, i.e., lautree01.html, is key information because it will help avoid needless clicks to pages that may not be useful in your search. For example a search for Franklin would produce all the entries in the Laughter Tree for Franklin as well as the NC county of Franklin, and all of the instances of that name in the Golden Nuggets of U.S. History section of the site (Benjamin Franklin!).

The computer file names for the Laughter Tree have names that are meaningful within the Tree. The main files are -- lautree01.html through lautree11.html --. There are some secondary files in a "notes" folder such as one previously mentioned (laughtername.html) which may or may not be of interest in searches. Nevertheless, they will show on the results page.

One other hint for avoiding needless clicks... A name, such as "Zedick" in the image above, may not appear in the tree until the 6th or 7th generation but then will appear on every page thereafter as an ancestor. Looking over the summary will show that the early "hits" (generation 5, lautree05.html -- versus generation 11, lautree11.html) should be clicked to see the family entry.