Alan
E. Mann, AG
fhfair@alanmann.com Accredited
Genealogist
www.alanmann.com/articles prepared January 2005
Beginning
Research on the Internet
The
Internet is the richest source of family history information available today.
The amount, scope, and availability of data are staggering, even
incomprehensible. It is virtually certain that there is valid information about
your ancestors on the Internet that you don’t have. Information that you would
probably want if only you knew it was there.
So, how can you find it? There are three basic approaches or search
methods to find family history information on the Internet. These are:
1. Search by name of the
person sought
2. Search by place where
the desired ancestor lived
3. Search by record type
that may contain the information desired.
I
have two long lists of family history sites on the web. Where? On the web, of course. See www.alanmann.com/Name-based%20Searching.htm
and www.alanmann.com/Place-based%20searching.htm.
Those two pages are a starting point for finding information on the Internet.
As you seek to use those sites, keep some ideas in mind. The balance of this
syllabus material deals with the things you should keep in mind.
What
to look for
The
Internet is the strongest in finding compiled information. That is information
that has already been gathered by someone else. A good tool for finding
compiled family history is www.genealogy.com/ifftop.html
(see Family Home Pages). However, the Internet is a source of original
information as well. A handy list of vital records available on the Internet is
available at:
www.progenealogists.com/genealogysleuthb.htm
for
www.progenealogists.com/genealogysleuthi.htm for international records.
U.S.
Census records are online at Ancestry.com or HeritageQuestOnline.com. British
records are at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/searchourcollections/.
A sample list of real records and finding aids on the Internet is at www.alanmann.com/articles/sources.htm.
Who/Where
to search
What
source should we use to find what we are seeking?
Experience. Most of us start with
web sites and we use our own experience to determine which sites to use. One
way to take advantage of your own experience is to keep a list of bookmarks or
favorites. This is when you locate a site that you know might be useful to you
in the future and you mark it so you
can get back to it easily. Consider keeping favorites—and consider organizing
them to make retrieval easier.
Luck. Many choose to just randomly surf the web.
While this may lead to an occasional success, I prefer to use the other sources
mentioned here to get me closer to the desired information. Then luck doesn’t
have so far to take me…
Ask someone who knows. This sounds like
bothering someone, but it usually isn’t. While I don’t rule out asking the
neighbor/friend/librarian, the largest number of people in the know are
webmasters—people who have created web sites to help you find things. Here we
can list Cyndi Howells (www.cyndislist.com),
Genealogy Site Finder (www.genealogy.com/links),
and a variety of others. Use these sites that are intended to help you. You
might also consider sites that help you learn more about genealogical searching
on the Internet (see www.alanmann.com/Select%20Records%20to%20Search.htm).
Use Unknown Relatives. Find and
contact other people looking for information about your ancestor. To locate
them, use the following:
§ FamilySearch
Internet at www.familysearch.org/Share/default.asp. Check
collaboration lists.
§ Roots
Surname List
at http://rsl.rootsweb.com/cgi‑bin/rslsql.cgi.
§ Genforum at www.genforum.com.
Look for a message
board for your ancestor's surname.
§ Mailing
lists. Mailing lists are messages (questions, announcements, information, etc.)
about a specific name, family, or place that are forwarded to all interested
parties. See www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail.html
for a list of mailing lists.
§ Newsgroups.
Newsgroups are like mailing lists only you ask for messages each time. See www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_use.html
for a list of newsgroups.
§ USGenWeb at www.usgenweb.org or www.worldgenweb.org.
Choose a specific place and search the queries for that place.
How
to search
Try
all the possible methods for the best chance of finding as much as possible. In
general, we can search for information by:
|
§
Name |
§
Time Period |
§
Characteristic, |
|
§
Place |
§
Event |
Or |
|
§
Record Type |
§
Topic |
§
Keyword |
While looking at this
list you may think it’s obvious. However, we should examine this list of aspects
to direct our searches. Once we exhaustively searched for our ancestors name,
we should try searching according to the places that ancestor lived. Another common approach is a record type that
might contain the information desired.
Next, we consider topics that might apply to the ancestor we are
seeking, such as:
o
an
ethnic or religious group associated with that ancestor
o
a genealogical help topic (brick walls?)
o
an
historical event that occurred during the ancestor’s life (locally specific or
nationally/internationally significant)
Next,
we consider the time period in which the ancestor lived. Is there a general
term that applies to that time? If so, we search categorized lists or use
search engines to find sites for that time period. For example, if an ancestor
lived in the
Don’t stop just
because you succeed!
One common mistake is to stop searching when we find something. It’s great to
find something about our ancestor and consider our search a success, but we
should continue our searches with the other search aspects even after one
method was successful. Another method may lead to additional information about
that same ancestor.
Use a
search engine. An Internet search engine is like a catalog
to the Internet. Companies and individuals with web sites notify the search
engines about their sites because they want people to find out about their
site. Search engines also use spiders or robots—tools that go looking around
the Internet, capturing pages and then indexing them. Beware—not all search
engines are equal. Some index the first few sentences of a web page only. Other
index every word. No search engine indexes all of the web. Some have billions of pages and others only
have a few hundred million…
Search engines are not
designed specifically for genealogy, but rather search for whatever words you
input to search. There are thousands of search engines. One source claims to
list over 809,000 search engines. Basically, a search engine visits web sites
and indexes their content. While a search engine can index the name Richard
Poor, it wouldn’t be able to distinguish between a person by that name, Poor
Richard’s almanac, and a play that had the line “Alas, poor Richard…” Once when
searching for wills left by my Brooks family ancestors, a search engine
confidently directed me to a page where I found the sentence “Garth Brooks
will be appearing…” There are some tricks to using search engines. Use
unusual names whenever possible (see tip #6 at the first, above). When
searching for a common family name, add the word genealogy, the phrase “family
history”, or “was born” after the name to narrow down your search.
Consider using a meta-search
engine such as www.zapmeta.com, which is
a search engine that combines the results from several search engines. Consider
using a clustering meta-search engine such as www.clusty.com.
One way to use a default search engine is to just type what you want to find
into the address bar of your web browser. Try it and see what happens. My wife
loves doing this.
For
more general Internet search tools and information on search engines, see searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156241
(metasearching),
searchenginewatch.com/resources/index.php
(facts, tutorials, explanations), and
www.searchenginewatch.com/facts/index.php.
Search
Methodology
Here are a few pointers that apply to genealogical
searches on the Internet.
1. In general, we should
keep our start our searches broad and then narrow them down when necessary.
This is because too much detail may cause us to miss something we might have
found useful. For example, when visiting FamilySearch.org, we can enter first
name, last name, birth year, birth place, spouse’s name, father’s full name,
and mother’s full name. I suggest that you enter just the first and last name
unless the name is fairly common (this wouldn’t work for Thomas Walker, William
Jones, or Mary Taylor). If the surname is very unusual, you may want to enter
surname only for your search. Consider leaving the place blank—you never know
when family members might be found in an unexpected part of the world. If you
get too many hits, then redo the search with some added detail.
2. Be aware of what is
being searched. You may want to search at either a higher or lower level (e.g.,
IGI only vs. “all resources”)
3. Check out search
help—this is one time that help often helps. This may be hidden in a link to
“advanced search.” There may be appealing options that you really don’t want to
use—like exact spelling in familysearch.
4. Find out what options
you have in searching. You may be able to use partial or truncated searches.
5. The most important tip
of all is the simplest. READ THE SCREEN. If you take time to do that, you can
avoid many rookie mistakes.
6. Consider searching for
uncommon names first. If John Smith married Hortense Frinzwilter, don’t search for John—search for Hortense Frinzwalter. If David
Brown had a brother Eliphalet Brown, search for Eliphalet. Then David may appear on the same page.
7. If you enter a year,
ALWAYS select “range of years” or + or – x years. Years are often estimated,
approximated, or incorrectly reported.
©Copyright 1997-2005 by Alan E. Mann. All rights reserved.
Written permission to reproduce all or part of this syllabus material in any
format, including photocopying, data retrieval, or the Internet, must be
secured in advance from the copyright holder.