Alan E. Mann, A.G.

byu@alanmann.com                                                                           Accredited Genealogist

www.alanmann.com/articles/search.htm                                                                 July 2003                                                                                                                                               

 

Internet Search Techniques

for Genealogists

 

The Internet is the richest source of genealogical information available today. The amount, scope, and availability of data is 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 we would probably want if only we knew it was there.

So how can we find it? That’s the topic of this session.

 

  1. In general, start your searches broad and then narrow it down when necessary. This is because too much detail may cause you to miss something 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 (you probably shouldn’t search for just Thomas Walker, William Jones, or Mary Taylor, but add some place or time period when searching for these common names). 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 region of the world. If you get too many hits, then redo the search with some added detail—but not too much 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”). Sometimes, restricting your search to a single database gives you additional search options or effectively narrows your search down to something manageable.
  3. Check out search help—this is one time that help often actually helps. This may be hidden in a link to “advanced search.” There may be options that look appealing but that you shouldn’t use—like exact spelling in FamilySearch.
  4. Find out what options you have in searching. You may be able to use partial, truncated, or wildcard 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 Smith—search for Hortense Frinzwilter. If David Brown had a brother Eliphalet Brown, search for Eliphalet. Then David may appear on the same page or in the same source.
  7. If you enter a year, ALWAYS select “range of years” or + or – x years. Years are often estimated, approximated, or incorrectly reported.

 

I’ve noted after years of teaching college courses that students who might be drifting off to sleep will suddenly perk up when I mention a numbered list. The cynic in me says that this is probably because they figure a numbered list will be on an exam. This led me to say at strategic points, “there are three ways to find what you want on the Internet.” However, it would be more accurate to say that there are different aspects of trying to find information on the Internet. The two aspects I’d like to talk about are Method and Source.

 

Search Method (What/How to search)

 

What I mean by search methods is the different ways you can think about what you are looking for. This could also be called search approach. The key here is to try all the possible methods for the best chance of finding as much as possible. In general, we can search for information by:

 
  • Name
  • Place
  • Topic
  • Time Period
  • Event
  • Characteristic,

or

  • 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. For some sites to use for name-based or place-based searching see www.alanmann.com/Name-based%20Searching.htm and www.alanmann.com/Place-based%20searching.htm. 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 record type that might contain the information desired

o      a genealogical help topic (brick walls?)

 

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 United States before 1790, we could search for genealogy web sites concerning Colonial times. Was the ancestor alive during the time an historical event took place, such as the Whisky Rebellion? If so, we may search for that event, particularly if the ancestor lived in the area where the event took place. Finally, we shouldn’t overlook the possibility that searching by characteristic or keyword may lead us to information.

 

Don’t stop just because you succeed! Success can be a barrier to further success. 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. Finish the list of search results or “hits”, then continue with the other search aspects even after finding what you were seeking. Another method may lead to additional information about that same ancestor.

 

Source Types (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 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 big a gap to bridge…

 

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/Eng/Share/Preserve/frameset_preserve.asp. Check collaboration lists.

§      Roots Surname List at http://rsl.rootsweb.com/#search.

§      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 have to ask for messages each time. See www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_use.html for a list of newsgroups.

§      Surname Helper at http://surhelp.rootsweb.com/srchall.html. Search over 4,000 query databases.

§      USGenWeb at www.usgenweb.org or www.worldgenweb.org. Choose a specific place and search the queries for that place.

 

 

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 or the phrase “family history” after the name to narrow down your search. Consider using a meta-search engine, which is a search engine that combines the results from several search engines. For more information about search engines, see www.searchengineshowdown.com and www.searchenginewatch.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 this!

 

 

Why/When to search

 

Journalists are taught to tell readers who, what, why, where, when, and how. Now that we’ve discussed who, what, how, and where, we still have why and when. For the most part, these questions are best answered by the individual. But there’s at least one way that I need to mention WHEN. You see, the Internet is dynamic. If what you wanted isn’t there today, it might be tomorrow. This means that our searches may need to be repeated from time to time to locate new information or newly indexed or categorized information.

 

 

©Copyright 1997-2003 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.

 

Site updated 29 Oct 2003