Alan
E. Mann, AG
alan.familyhistory@gmail.com Accredited
Genealogist
BYU 2008 Computerized Genealogy conference www.alanmann.com/articles
Saturday, 15 March 2008 10:30
am
Tips for using the Internet
more effectively
Basics
Some
of the basics I would like to cover include tabbed browsing, toolbars and
favorites, browser extensions, and optimizing screen real estate (the amount of
the screen that can be devoted to the Internet page). Screen real estate or
viewing area is affected by your toolbar layout as well by resolution and
taskbar settings.
You
generally view the Internet using a web browser. You can choose which web
browser you want to use. Internet Explorer by MicroSoft
comes on most PCs, while MACs come with Safari. There is a Safari version for
PCs. There is also FireFox, Opera, and a variety of
other web browsers, each with unique features, options, and ways of presenting
web pages. You can download another browser and try it out. If you like it, just set it as your default browser (an option when you
first start the browser). You can have more than one
browser and choose which to use by clicking on the appropriate icon whenever
you go to the Internet (although one will be set as the default).
Here
are several other basic recommendations:
- Set your resolution as
high as your preference and eyesight will allow (right click on desktop,
pick properties, then settings).
- Consider using “auto hide”
taskbar (right click on taskbar, properties)
- Consider changing the web
browser toolbars to “icon only” to save space.
- Consolidate toolbars by
putting more than one on a line, and eliminate any you don’t use.
- Remove icons you don’t use
from the toolbar (and add those you need).
- You can set which toolbars
display by right-clicking on the toolbars and selecting or deselecting
toolbars.
- USE your links bar! You
CAN add folders to the links bar. Drag and drop the “e” from the address
bar to the links bar to add favorites.
- When you need a little
more viewing area, hit F11 (F11 again to revert).
Tabbed
browsing can save you time. Internet Explorer implemented this in IE 7. Tabs
allow you to view more than one web site in a single browser window. This
conserves resources, allows you to preserve items for later viewing, avoids
shifting focus, and opens other options.
Extensions
enhance the capabilities of your browser. I use FireFox,
and find extensions TabMixPlus, Map+, IE Tab, Email
This, FoxPose, and FireFTP
to be helpful. For example, Email This allows me to
email any web page using a web-based email (Gmail or Yahoo!) and Map+ will call
up a map of any placename or address I highlight on
any webpage. To see extensions, click on Tools at the top of your browser and
pick Add-ons (or manage Add-ons).
You
may want to consider importing another’s favorites. The Family History Library
maintains a list of “favorite” websites for use on the Library’s computers, and
has made this list available in the library to export for personal use. The
self-extracting zip file and the instructions for importing are available in
the library. A quick way to check whether it includes sites useful to you is to
look at www.fhlfavorites.info
(CAUTION: not all the FHL favorites are there—use to get an idea only).
Searching
I often tell people the Internet is the richest source of genealogical
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 you only knew it was there. So how can you find it? With
a lot of searching.
Generally,
a genealogist’s Internet searching has two phases.
- First, you must find the
website that may have the desired information.
- Then, you search that
website for the desired information.
Finding the
Website
There
are many ways to find a website. The most common is that someone else tells you
about it. You can increase the likelihood of this happening by participating in
society meetings (like this one), talking to other genealogists (phone, mail,
email, online), or participating in online discussion groups or mailing lists.
Another
common way is to use a directory site. The best known example is Cyndi’s List (www.cyndislist.com), but perhaps a better
genealogy website directory is www.linkpendium.com. You can get more from a
directory site by learning how it is organized and by reading the help screens
and general information. It is almost always possible to search a directory site.
When
the above two methods haven’t yielded results, many genealogists turn to search
engines. While “search engine” can be correctly used in several different ways,
the most common usage is a web tool used to find web pages on a specific topic.
It is important to understand what a search engine is, what it includes, and
how to best use it. The answers to these questions are the subject of my
presentation at this conference Saturday at 4:15 (or see syllabus or my web
site).
Searching the
Website
Many
sites have a lot of databases with a search that looks through and presents
results from all of the different databases. These are metasearches
because they search many databases, although metaseach
is normally used to describe a search of many sites rather than just many
databases on a single site.
USGenWeb.
The simplest would be the USGenWeb Archive. Here,
there are hundreds of thousands of files representing extracts, transcriptions,
abstracts, and indexes to many millions of names. The site search engine allows
you to search all of their files at once or all of the files for any one state.
However, the search options are extremely limited. Basically, you can search
for any word in any of the files selected, but you cannot specify whether the
word is a name, place, relationship, or something else. This is called a
freeform, general, or unfielded search. While it does
offer the advantage of searching many things at once, it doesn’t give much
flexibility to limit or narrow the search results.
Ancestry. This is a site with many
different databases. They have made a default search that searches across those
databases—census, wills, family history books, obituaries, and more. You
usually search by name, but can add country, state or province, year range,
keyword, or record type. You can also specify whether to use soundex or exact spelling. The search template does not
change when you specify a record type. But if you select a
record type from the list at the right, the search template changes. You
will then probably only be able to specify name and keyword. You also will get
a list of databases so that you can further restrict your search. The general
policy for Ancestry is to search the database for the items specified, but to
ignore any input fields that don’t apply to that database. For example, if you
specify a range of years, but the database being searched doesn’t specify
years, Ancestry’s metasearch will just ignore the
year range and display any results from that database.
FamilySearch.
This site
lists the databases it searches along the left. The default is “all resources,”
a metasearch. You can limit your search to a specific
database to get additional search options. FamilySearch’s
general policy is to restrict your search fields to just those fields that are
common to the databases being searched. Thus, an all resources search has
search fields. When you select census records, you get different search fields.
When you select one census year to search, you get yet more options unique to
that census.
Heritage Quest Online. This site has some useful ways
of grouping results and actually has the most flexible census searches. It is
less of a metasearch than the other sites listed here
because it has three categories, and has no single search that searches all
three categories. Nonetheless, there are thousands of databases searched within
a category.
Hopefully,
you can see that your searches will be more successful if you understand the
limitations, capabilities, and “gotchas” of the site
or search tool that you are using. The best rule is to READ THE HELP files
relating to searching. They are often very helpful.
Final Notes
I’ve
often mentioned automatic backup services, and I’ve tried to use several.
Several services offer free online storage, but you have to remember what to
save there and manage the use of the space and the files stored there. An
automatic backup service does this for you automatically. One of my long time
favorites, Mozy, has introduced a backup service for
a fee of only $4.95/mo. Alternatively, you get a free
2 gb at Mozy (and I get
256mb more if you use this link - https://mozy.com/?ref=6H24GG).
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.
Doesn’t
forget the need to know what you are searching—what’s the scope, the source,
and how do you use it?
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©Copyright 1999-2008 by Alan E.
Mann, AG. 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.