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  1. #1
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Default Tips for Google Searching

    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:

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  2. #2
    MarkJ
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    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
    https://www.google.co.uk/microsoft for Windows problems
    https://www.google.co.uk/linux for Linux related issues
    https://www.google.co.uk/mac for Apple/Mac queries
    https://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

  3. #3
    Alan Welsford
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    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!

  4. #4
    BimJim
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    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

  5. #5
    Joanna1
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    Quote Originally Posted by BimJim View Post
    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

  6. #6
    Joanna1
    Guest

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Sue Mackay View Post
    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:


    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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

  7. #7
    Cassie2008
    Guest

    Default Tips for searching on google

    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.

  8. #8
    Joanna1
    Guest

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Sue Mackay View Post
    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:

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.

  9. #9
    Super Moderator Sue Mackay's Avatar
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Joanna1 View Post
    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

    https://www.british-genealogy.com/for...ad.php?t=28562
    Sue Mackay
    Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your kids

  10. #10
    Heather Bond
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    Default

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

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