Alan E. Mann, AG

alan.familyhistory@gmail.com Accredited Genealogist

Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy January 2006

Power Tools for Internet Genealogy

Searching the Internet by Surname

This session is about search methods. There is a lot of information of genealogical value on the Internet. The problem is that it is not indexed, poorly indexed, or indexed out of context. An Internet “search engine” is like an index, but there are also sites that have their own built-in search. Whether using a search engine, an individual site’s search tool, or just surfing for information, you can employ different search approaches. The main approaches or methods are by name, by place (locality), or by topic.

While there are surname sites (web pages devoted to a family or surname), the basic approach to finding data on the Internet is by surname using an index. Some databases are limited by locality, ethnic group, or other factors. There are many indexes to names in genealogies on the Internet that have across the board, or broad coverage. I will briefly cover many of the major ones that I use.

FamilySearch Internet

• by the Church or Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS web site)

• Understand IGI name standardization

• A billion names (Ancestral File, IGI, Pedigree Resource File, Vital Records, etc.)

• located at www.familysearch.org

Internet Family Finder

• by FamilyTreeMaker (Brøderbund, Learning Tree, or Genealogy.com)

• actually a search engine, whose results are stored as an index

• Family Web pages portion indexes hundreds of thousands of web sites, including Genealogy.com’s own site (see GenealogyLibrary, below)

• Family Archives CDs portion indexes all their CD‑ROM data

• CD number in URL when you click on “more information”

• Use volunteers (http://loricase.com/CDs/cdlist.html) or FHL to get data from CD

• search CD collection only at www.familytreemaker.com/cdhome.html

• index often name only, sometimes birth or death date range or state or country

• see also keyword site search at www.genealogy.com/sitesearch.html

• located at www.familytreemaker.com/ifftop.html

RootsWeb Surname List

• by Karen Isaacson and others

• probably not a “surname catalog”, but included here anyway

• a research coordination list; tells who else is researching the same names

• located at rsl.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/rslsql.cgi

USGenWeb Archive search

• by USGenWeb (volunteers)

• Over 250,000 files of extracted or transcribed records

• Search by state at www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/newsearch.htm

• Search all states at once at searches.rootsweb.com/htdig/search.html

Ancestry.com Search

• by Ancestry, Inc., a subsidiary of MyFamily.com

• includes thousands of books & databases (published or extracted, not submitted)

• includes indexes to US census records 1790-1930

• charges for full access (free at FHL)

• various search options, regions, etc.

• combined search searches all the books, databases, SSDI, and World Tree (but not everything) located at www.ancestry.com/

HeritageQuestOnline

• by HeritageQuest (part of ProQuest)

• available only to institutions—many state or county libraries, universities, have it

• available to Godfrey Memorial Library members online (www.godfrey.org)

• Indexes most U.S. census records, but heads of household only. Some different search capabilities and superior results listings. Has large collection of scanned books, plus PERSI.

GenealogyLibrary Search

• by FamilyTreeMaker (or Genealogy.com)

• includes thousands of books and databases (published or extracted)

• promises to add three new databases a day

• requires a fee for access

• located at www.genealogylibrary.com/

•

BYU Family History Archive

• Joint project with Family History Library and BYU, with links from FHLC

• Located at www.lib.byu.edu/fhc/ (major, growing collection of scanned books)

Library of Congress Surname catalog

• by Library of Congress

• tells what's been published, but content is not actually on web

• located at catalog.loc.gov/

Mailing Lists

• Mailing lists are communities working together

• Thousands of lists are devoted to specific surnames

• Most listed by John Fuller & Christine Gaunt (Genealogy Resources on the Internet)

• General surname lists are listed at www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_surnames-gen.html

• Surnames beginning with a given letter follow this pattern (for the letter A): www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_surnames‑a.html

• Note that the seldom used Newsgroups are now “gatewayed” through mailing lists, see www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_use.html (check for archives)

• Largest is ROOTS-L, located at http://www.rootsweb.com/roots-l.html

Message Boards

• Forums or message boards are outgrowths of newsgroups and query boards. This should be checked for every family your research!

• Genealogy.com, familytreemaker is at www.genforum.com

• Ancestry’s message boards are at http://boards.ancestry.com

• Google Groups -- http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?lnk=srgmb&q=genealogy

• Queries still exist in many places, most notably USGenWeb by the individual states and counties. For other queries, check www.cyndislist.com/queries.htm

Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS)

• by the organization - Members do a study, extracting all occurrences of a surname

• Alphabetical list of all the surnames registered, with links to name & email of member

• located at www.one-name.org/

For names in various geographical databases, see the material title “Place-based Searching” and for sites of more specific nature, please look at lists of databases, such as those below:

• Many sources are available for regional or specific state research, such as the Bureau of Land Management, located at www.glorecords.blm.gov/.

• www.bc1.com/users/sgl/, and

• www.CyndisList.com/database.htm.

To find sites devoted to a particular surname, you can also use a categorized list, such as:

• Cyndi Howell’s List of Web Sites (www.Cyndislist.com/surnames.htm),

• Genealogy SiteFinder (www.genealogy.com/links/c/c-people.html), or

• Discovering Surnames (www.discoveringsurnames.com/).

An interesting list of indexes with links is the All-In-One Genealogists Index at www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/8310/gensearcher.html. I have a sampling of some specific, useful indexes listed at www.geocities.com/Heartland/6266/indexes.htm.

Also check out CA Culman’s tool to search ten major sites with one search command at

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/CACulman/MultiGen.htm

Another way to apply surname strategy is to use general search engines, or search tools that are not limited to genealogical sites. While these often return information that is not useful to family history research, some of the web pages they locate do not seem to be indexed by the genealogical search tools available. Search engines work well for unusual names, however. Popular search engines include www.google.com, www.clusty.com, and www.excite.com. There are thousands more. For information on using non-genealogical search engines for genealogical searches, see www.geocities.com/familyhistory.geo/howto3.htm.

Find your way by trying out the resources listed here. Spend a few hours experimenting and you will enhance and enrich your future Internet use. You’ll shorten the time to find anything, and you’ll amaze yourself with how much is available. Soon people will be coming to you, the Internet expert.

For a OLD demo of thirteen popular web sites, see www.geocities.com/q6266/.

©Copyright 2004-2006 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.