Tips for Google Searching

[Sue Mackay]

Many newbies to family history are also fairly new to computers, and don't really know how to get the best out of search engines like Google. Some of these tips might help, and hopefully others can add more:


Learn to use Inverted Commas. For example, if you type in John Davies you will get 12,600,000 hits, as the computer will search for all instances of the words John and Davies appearing in the same document, not necessarily together. Type in "John Davies" and this is immediately reduced to 634,000, and typing "John Davies born" will narrow it down to 1,440, all concerning births of people called John Davies and mostly family history related sites.

Do not be afraid to press the button to the right of the Google Bar marked Advanced Search. This enables you to enter lots of keywords and exact phrases to narrow down your search, but more importantly it enables you to eliminate unwanted hits. If you are looking for ancestors in Boston, Lincolnshire, then tell the search engine to ignore Mass, MA, "New England" and you will eliminate most of the hits relating to Boston USA.

When searching for pictures of the places where your ancestors lived, click on Image Search above the toolbar. Click on Advanced Search and you can specify .jpg files. This will eliminate most of the logos from sites which the computer thinks of as images, but which are mainly .gif files. Similarly by opting for b/w under Coloration you can home in on historic photos.

[MarkJ]

Don't forget that Google has specific Operating System related searches too. Useful if you are looking for the answer to a computing problem which is related to your choice of OS :)
http://www.google.co.uk/microsoft for Windows problems
http://www.google.co.uk/linux for Linux related issues
http://www.google.co.uk/mac for Apple/Mac queries
http://www.google.co.uk/bsd for BSD/Unix questions

Remember to use the correct location for your country - co.uk for the UK, .com for USA etc
It is worth a look at the different OS specific sites - even if only to see the different logos that Google use for them! But the right choice can help avoid hundreds of pointless hits for an OS you do not use.

Mark

[Alan Welsford]

I have been gob-smacked when using Google to have it find threads that I put on this forum literally on the day beforehand.

Goodness knows how they manage to keep trawling around so much material and be so up to date.

I've worked with computers nearly all my working life, but am still amazed by the whole concept of search engines and how remarkably effective they can be.

Now we just need to train people who put interesting stuff on the web to actually spell things correctly, so searches find them, (or don't find them!)

My personal plea would be for people to stop typing "I'm tring to find my ancestor from Nether Wollop....". My ancestors are from Tring, and their failure to spell "trying" makes it almost impossible for me to search for anything!

[BimJim]

Here's a tip that will narrow your searches considerably and make the search engines much more useful. Use the mathematical symbols plus and minus to tell the search engine database what you MUST and MUST NOT have in the returned pages.

For instance, if I want to have information on sleep apnea, the average Joe would normally type into the textbox +sleep +apnea. The words WITHOUT the plus signs will bring me ALL pages with "sleep" and ALL pages with "apnea" - almost double the hit response.

But that will bring me ALL pages with those two words, whether they are sequential or not, so the wiser use would be to instead type in "sleep apnea" (with the quotation signs), which tell the search engine database that the words must be found together.

And suppose I saw that many pages were advertising the sleep apnea CPAP machines, and there was very little description of the condition I was interested in reading about... then I would change the search criteria to -cpap +"sleep apnea". The minus sign tells the search engine database from the start that I want to ignore the pages with the "word" CPAP in them.

This works with most search engines, as well as eBay, probably other search utilities too.

And if you trail your MUST HAVE (plus sign) and DONT WANT (minus sign) words/phrases with other words that are unadorned with plus or minus, you are asking the search engine database to add in pages which may or may not contain those words.

HTH

Jim Lynch

[Joanna1]

Here's a tip that will narrow your searches considerably and make the search engines much more useful. Use the mathematical symbols plus and minus to tell the search engine database what you MUST and MUST NOT have in the returned pages.

For instance, if I want to have information on sleep apnea, the average Joe would normally type into the textbox +sleep +apnea. The words WITHOUT the plus signs will bring me ALL pages with "sleep" and ALL pages with "apnea" - almost double the hit response.

But that will bring me ALL pages with those two words, whether they are sequential or not, so the wiser use would be to instead type in "sleep apnea" (with the quotation signs), which tell the search engine database that the words must be found together.

And suppose I saw that many pages were advertising the sleep apnea CPAP machines, and there was very little description of the condition I was interested in reading about... then I would change the search criteria to -cpap +"sleep apnea". The minus sign tells the search engine database from the start that I want to ignore the pages with the "word" CPAP in them.

This works with most search engines, as well as eBay, probably other search utilities too.

And if you trail your MUST HAVE (plus sign) and DONT WANT (minus sign) words/phrases with other words that are unadorned with plus or minus, you are asking the search engine database to add in pages which may or may not contain those words.

HTH

Jim Lynch

Thanks for this I will try it out. Joanna

[Joanna1]

Many newbies to family history are also fairly new to computers, and don't really know how to get the best out of search engines like Google. Some of these tips might help, and hopefully others can add more:



Learn to use Inverted Commas. For example, if you type in John Davies you will get 12,600,000 hits, as the computer will search for all instances of the words John and Davies appearing in the same document, not necessarily together. Type in "John Davies" and this is immediately reduced to 634,000, and typing "John Davies born" will narrow it down to 1,440, all concerning births of people called John Davies and mostly family history related sites.

Do not be afraid to press the button to the right of the Google Bar marked Advanced Search. This enables you to enter lots of keywords and exact phrases to narrow down your search, but more importantly it enables you to eliminate unwanted hits. If you are looking for ancestors in Boston, Lincolnshire, then tell the search engine to ignore Mass, MA, "New England" and you will eliminate most of the hits relating to Boston USA.

When searching for pictures of the places where your ancestors lived, click on Image Search above the toolbar. Click on Advanced Search and you can specify .jpg files. This will eliminate most of the logos from sites which the computer thinks of as images, but which are mainly .gif files. Similarly by opting for b/w under Coloration you can home in on historic photos.


Thank you Sue. Joanna

[Cassie2008]

Thanks for the tips on searching. It will certainly help a great deal as I am one of the many who just type it in and hope for the best. I will be trying this asap.

[Joanna1]

Many newbies to family history are also fairly new to computers, and don't really know how to get the best out of search engines like Google. Some of these tips might help, and hopefully others can add more:


Learn to use Inverted Commas. For example, if you type in John Davies you will get 12,600,000 hits, as the computer will search for all instances of the words John and Davies appearing in the same document, not necessarily together. Type in "John Davies" and this is immediately reduced to 634,000, and typing "John Davies born" will narrow it down to 1,440, all concerning births of people called John Davies and mostly family history related sites.

Do not be afraid to press the button to the right of the Google Bar marked Advanced Search. This enables you to enter lots of keywords and exact phrases to narrow down your search, but more importantly it enables you to eliminate unwanted hits. If you are looking for ancestors in Boston, Lincolnshire, then tell the search engine to ignore Mass, MA, "New England" and you will eliminate most of the hits relating to Boston USA.

When searching for pictures of the places where your ancestors lived, click on Image Search above the toolbar. Click on Advanced Search and you can specify .jpg files. This will eliminate most of the logos from sites which the computer thinks of as images, but which are mainly .gif files. Similarly by opting for b/w under Coloration you can home in on historic photos.


Thank you Sue Still trying to find out some thing on Gerneral Sir John Fletcher Owen. And found nothing.

[Sue Mackay]

Thank you Sue Still trying to find out some thing on General Sir John Fletcher Owen. And found nothing.

Have you looked at posts 18-21 on your thread at

http://www.british-genealogy.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28562

[Heather Bond]

Hi Sue,
I have been practicing your search tips for Google all morning.
Thank you for this useful information.
Heather
Canada

[Sue Mackay]

Hi Sue,
I have been practicing your search tips for Google all morning.
Thank you for this useful information.
Heather
Canada

Hope you've found some useful stuff along the way!

[helen57]

Hi Sue & Jim

Thank you so much, I am one who puts in words and gets reams of hits.
You have both help cut out the hits that are useless to me :)

Again a big thank you

Helen

[Nicos]

Oh boy...I wonder how many hours I must have wasted in the past!!:o

Thanks folks!

[Joanna1]

Don't forget that Google has specific Operating System related searches too. Useful if you are looking for the answer to a computing problem which is related to your choice of OS :)
http://www.google.co.uk/microsoft for Windows problems
http://www.google.co.uk/linux for Linux related issues
http://www.google.co.uk/mac for Apple/Mac queries
http://www.google.co.uk/bsd for BSD/Unix questions

Remember to use the correct location for your country - co.uk for the UK, .com for USA etc
It is worth a look at the different OS specific sites - even if only to see the different logos that Google use for them! But the right choice can help avoid hundreds of pointless hits for an OS you do not use.

Mark

Thanks Mark but what is OS? What does it stand for?

[Danno]

Thanks for the Hints & Tips

I used to put the words 'Genealogy & Family Tree' along with the names I was searching for.
I'll be using these tips from now on.

Cheers :)
Danno

[Sue Mackay]

Thanks Mark but what is OS? What does it stand for?

Operating System. Yours is very probably Windows.

[Sue Mackay]

Don't forget Google Book Search

This can be reached via the main Google page but it is well worth bookmarking
http://books.google.com/

Type in a name you are interested in, using inverted commas. It will bring up instances of the name in books, some of which can be read on line, some of which are closed (but you get a tantalising glimpse of the relevant extract).

One of the most useful things on Google Book Search is when searching for things that were in early publications such as The Gentleman's Magazine. Type in "Gentleman's Magazine" "Thomas Smith", for example, and see the sort of thing that comes up.

Warning! You can play around in this site for days! But the hits that come up are not on normal Google, and there are a lot of 18th and 19th century BMDs from Harleian Society publications and other journals.

I even discovered that one of my ancestors, an apothecary, had written pamphlets on the medicinal properties of plants!

[MarkJ]

Thanks Mark but what is OS? What does it stand for?

In this case, Operating System, Joanna. For example Microsoft Windows XP is an Operating System. Mac OSX is also an Operating System.

Mark

[Browneyes]

Just another tip that can help sometimes.

If you are looking for a topic and more than just the usual info found on Google you could type a word like 'article' or 'research' or 'e-text' 'online book' before the name of the topic. E-texts and online books can be lengthy but fascinating reading. If they're in pdf format you can search for a word using the binocular symbol, if not in pdf try using 'find' under Edit at the top of your screen. You might get lucky too if you add a specific date or century to your search.

Browneyes

[elizabethjones1]

Don't forget Google Book Search

This can be reached via the main Google page but it is well worth bookmarking
http://books.google.com/

Type in a name you are interested in, using inverted commas. It will bring up instances of the name in books, some of which can be read on line, some of which are closed (but you get a tantalising glimpse of the relevant extract).

One of the most useful things on Google Book Search is when searching for things that were in early publications such as The Gentleman's Magazine. Type in "Gentleman's Magazine" "Thomas Smith", for example, and see the sort of thing that comes up.

Warning! You can play around in this site for days! But the hits that come up are not on normal Google, and there are a lot of 18th and 19th century BMDs from Harleian Society publications and other journals.

I even discovered that one of my ancestors, an apothecary, had written pamphlets on the medicinal properties of plants!Thanks Sue for the above address !it will take me days to go through it but have made a start Oh what joy |hug|

[Sue Mackay]

Thanks Sue for the above address !it will take me days to go through it but have made a start Oh what joy |hug|

Don't forget the Google Book Search Treasure Hunt
http://www.british-genealogy.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29584
Closes midnight Wednesday

[apehangmom]

Thanks for the good word. Its sad that after a few computer classes over the years.. some bits of info slip away.. lol .. thanks for the continung education.. lol .. sometimes I forget to do things that save me a million hours on line looking at .. the wrong ancestors. lol thanks chris

[daisycakes]

Thanks for the tips on Google have just tried it.... great...daisycakes

[BimJim]

I have been gob-smacked when using Google to have it find threads that I put on this forum literally on the day beforehand.

Goodness knows how they manage to keep trawling around so much material and be so up to date.

I created and administer several Discussion Forums, and the software allows the admin to see who is "on line" at any specific moment. Regularly, out of 10 "guests" viewing the Forum no less than 9 will be search engine "spiders" - automated software cataloging the pages - and of those 9, usually 8 will be Google spiders.

Google is to my mind therefore the most active data seeker on the internet - which is not all that suprising, given that the youthful management and staff seem to be genuinely interested in remaining at number one, and with that kind of funding and brainpower in-house it really can't cost much more to run 10,000 spidering software programs continuously than to run just 10 - which is basically the same kind of thinking behind SPAMming.

[Joanna1]

Thanks for the good word. Its sad that after a few computer classes over the years.. some bits of info slip away.. lol .. thanks for the continung education.. lol .. sometimes I forget to do things that save me a million hours on line looking at .. the wrong ancestors. lol thanks chris


I can sympathize with you the same for me; I love my lap top I'm trying to learn more. G-B are so helpful with adivce on how to get going, also with their amazing knowlege of finding things which I would never find. I really need help and they are all so kind. We will get there in the end. Some are better than ohters at google like anything though once you know it is easy. Joanna

[Sue Mackay]

Here are a couple more tips.

When searching large genealogical sites with lots of transcriptions etc for a mention of a particular name, enter the following into Google

gilstain site:[type in URL of site]

This will bring up all mentions of the name Gilstain on that site.

Similarly typing in hayward site:http://www.theshipslist.com/ will bring up hits for people called Hayward named in passenger lists on that site.

If you are researching a name like Church, which comes up in just about every genealogical search, try entering

church + surname

or

church + surname + rootsweb

It doesn't eliminate all the problems, but it does help to focus in a little bit.

Edit: I keep trying to remove the hyperlinks so you can see the whole thing you have to type in, and they keep coming back |banghead|
The formula is
surname site:URL

[Cassie2008]

Hi I have tried some of the tips you have given and have located interesting information on some of my ancestors that was on the net
thanks!

[v.wells]

Thanks for bumping this up! I needed another refresher course! :D

[Browneyes]

Not sure if these have been mentioned but there is an advanced facility on Google Images and something called Google News Archive.

[v.wells]

Bump. I need help

[v.wells]

I can never find any name I type in unless it is because they are nonenities! The name I want to find is Arthur Joseph Livett born abt 1900 Woolwich. Assumed to be in association with the Kray brothers. He was supposed to be involved with their criminal activities which I have been reading about all afternoon. My google toolbar has changed itself in the last 3 days and the search box is different. Tried to re-do it but no joy.

Anyway Finbar, this Arthur J. Livett married Gladys N. Wallis in 1922 so I am starting to think this is a falsehood. I desparately need a Black Sheep even if it is an in-law!

[v.wells]

I'll start a new thread as I have now corrected the information given me.

Thanks for trying

[warncoort]

I began my search in 2004 with LDS PAF4,and as the search facility was included i have used it ever since. It has only been recently that i noticed results often ran out before the year range was arrived at as only 25 results were shown for each source,clicking on the "next" button revealed much more,and i now have new "olds".
I guess slow and steady really does win the race.
Eric

[Mary S (WA)]

Hi there,
Just clicked on to your message and am wondering what is LDS PAF4?

Thanks, Mary
(originally from London but have now spent more of my life in Perth)


I began my search in 2004 with LDS PAF4,and as the search facility was included i have used it ever since. It has only been recently that i noticed results often ran out before the year range was arrived at as only 25 results were shown for each source,clicking on the "next" button revealed much more,and i now have new "olds".
I guess slow and steady really does win the race.
Eric

[v.wells]

Paf4 is a tree (free) software program offered up by familysearch.org (LDS). It is a very simple program but does offer up some different tree charts.

I have noticed also that when I search there I don't get as many records on each index search. I will try to remember the next button (sometimes its' not offered) when I know there are more to come.

[MarkJ]

Personal Ancestry File (version 4), from the Latter Day Saints.

PAF is a genealogy program where you can create a family tree - in much the same way as other programs, such as Legacy or many others.

Mark

Edit: Beaten to the post by V! ;)

[v.wells]

Timing is everything :D

[catgudgeon]

Please what is an OS Catherine

[AdeleE]

In this case, Operating System, Joanna. For example Microsoft Windows XP is an Operating System. Mac OSX is also an Operating System.

Mark

Hi Catherine,
See above.

[v.wells]

Operating System ie: Windows XP, Vista, Mac, Linux

[zane]

I love Google, one of my fave sayings is just Google it, I often just put in peoples names and see what comes up, (thanks for the inverted comma tip by the way didn't know that) and have found all sorts, my cousin's christening came up, even she didn't know the details, it is one of the many fascinating tools helping in our research for info on our families :)

[Waitabit]

What a clever Girl, Dorset is pretty but Adelaide is lovely too, with splendiferous surroundings countryside.

[zane]

weather just a bit nicer in Adelaide :)

[BrianBS]

Hello Sue
To add to your sound tips "John Davies"+South Africa (or any relevant country, place, town, etc) will narrow the search even further. Also don't forget to search "Books" and "Scholar" (under "More"). Different results from the general search crop up frequently.

Brian