Hi Chris,
thanks for your reply. Yes I knew there was the index list, which is fine in itself although still not a "search" facility as such. However and thanks (in a good way) to the continued success and growth of the Gallery some of the categories run to several pages, plus a few of their titles are a little non-specific as to their contents. Therefore I was thinking it might sometimes be considerably quicker to be able to search, say a family surname, or a specific building eg a church, to then produce a list of hits, thus saving what in some instances can be quite a lengthy browsing process across several categories. I myself have been thro the various categories several times over the years, yet it still can me take a long time to track-down specific photos with which to help answer a forum post, for example. Hence I wondered if it was just a case of me not using the site properly ?

I remember taking a while with the old site to realise there were 2 distinct "search boxes" which would give different results, these were in addition to the forum search by the way. I'm very pleased there is now just one search box, better for all, particularly new-comers. However, and as said I could be wrong, but I think these "old site" searches did include the Gallery section, whereas the "new" one does not as far as I can see. Hence I was really asking whether there was a method of directly "word" searching the photos, and if so what it was ?. I realise that introducing a new/improved search facility may be excessively expensive/difficult, and I'm not suggesting this is essential, but I thought it might be a fairly simple yet worthwhile "tweak" to the site's existing search facility.

Since first posting I've done a few experiments and am pleased to see that specific photos in the Gallery can be found using Google-type search engines, which is great, but not everyone thinks to do this in addition to using the site's own search box.
I think it can only help the site and forum grow and flourish if these wonderful photos can be more easily found.

Thanks again for your input, Jeff.

PS While on the subject of the Gallery, please may I ask how best to answer the queries attached below some of the photos, where their contributing owners ask for help identifying people in their photos ? Altho the photos often contain the name of their contributing owners, sometimes those names cannot be easily found within the list of forum users, so direct emails aren't practical (I have tried this route). I guess the only way for now is to post on the forum, but is this a surefire way the information will get back to the owner of the photo; I do hope so but would like clarification, please ?.
Again, without wishing to create too much extra burden on the hardworking admin, perhaps it would be possible to include an email "envelope" icon in the text where a photo asks for input, or similar ? If this was done when a photo was newly added to the Gallery, hopefully it wouldn't create too much extra work ?.
Just a thought.