diff --git a/app/models/person.rb b/app/models/person.rb
index 2798ac3fb..8382c9d34 100644
--- a/app/models/person.rb
+++ b/app/models/person.rb
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ class Person
      /^(https?):\/\/[a-z0-9]+([\-\.]{1}[a-z0-9]+)*(\.[a-z]{2,5})?(:[0-9]{1,5})?(\/.*)?$/ix
 
   def self.search(query)
+    return Person.all if query.to_s.empty?
     qTokens = query.to_s.strip.split(" ")
     fullQueryText = Regexp.escape( query.to_s.strip )
     p = []