Alan E. Mann, A.G.

alan.familyhistory@gmail.com Accredited Genealogist

www.alanmann.com/articles prepared October 2006

Surname Strategies for

Internet Research

More information than you could ever read is available on Internet. The problem is how to find it and weed out the part you really need. There is no catalog, and no master index. There are three basic ways to locate useful information on the Internet:

1. Experience, intuition or luck leads you to stumble across it.

2. You ask someone who knows where it is, and they tell you.

3. You use search engines to find it.

These are probably listed in same order as they are most commonly used. I can’t teach the first method, but we can talk about two and three. Method 2 often involves talking to a friend, relative, co-worker, or learning from a lecture or article. You are also using method 2 when you use a web page to help you find the information—the author of the web page is the person whom you are asking, and that author’s web page tells you (hopefully).

While there are surname sites (web pages devoted to a family or surname), the basic approach to finding data by surname is to use an index. There are many indexes to names in genealogies on the Internet. I will briefly cover many of the major ones that I have been able to locate.

FamilySearch Internet

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

• Can search across databases or one at a time (search capabilities differ)

• Hundreds of millions of names (Ancestral File, IGI, etc.)

• for more information, see FamilySearch Internet materials for Tuesday evening class

• 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

• indexes hundreds of thousands of web sites, including FamilyTreeMaker’s own site

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

• for more information, read www.familytreemaker.com/iffintro.html

USGenWeb Archive search

• by USGenWeb (volunteers)

• Over 800,000 files of extracted or transcribed records

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

• Can narrow search by state or even by county

HeritageQuestOnline.com

· by ProQuest, available only at institutions, such as libraries and universities.

· List of where available at www.eogen.com/HeritageQuestOnline

· Excellent search capabilities for US Census records, but head of household limit

· Many newspapers, published books, and more

· Periodical Source Index (PERSI)

Ancestry.com

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

• includes indexes to most US census records 1790-1870 and some later censuses

• quarterly charge for full access (up to $300 per year)

• Get a list of databases at www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/alldblist.aspx

Roots 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

GenForum message board

· by Genealogy.com, but free

· Forums for surnames, places, topics, and ethnic groups

· Extensive, useful database whose purpose is to put you in touch with unknown or lost relatives.

WorldVitalRecords.com

• by Provo Labs

• indexes several smaller databases, some of which are available for free elsewhere. Has a unique mapping component (see GeoGenealogy presentation)

• Current cost $49.95 for two years

• located at www.worldvitalrecords.com

FamilyFinder Index

• by FamilyTreeMaker

• indexes CD‑ROM data (some on Internet, most require CD)

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

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

GenealogyLibrary Search

• by FamilyTreeMaker (Brøderbund, Inc.)

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

• promise to add three new databases a day

• requires a monthly fee for access

• located at www.genealogylibrary.com/

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.html#SURNAMES

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

Newgroup Name Archive

• offered by Rootsweb

• indexes messages posted on public discussion areas

• several groups in several indexes; pick the ones that apply (soc.genealogy.surname is for everyone)

• archive covers years of messages; search one year at a time

• www.rootsweb.com/~jfuller/gen_use.html

Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS)

• by the organization (volunteers)

• Members have agreed to do a study that involves 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/

Other

• www.gensource.com/

• www.rootsweb.com

• www.onegreatfamily.com

• www.mytrees.com

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), or

• Genealogy SiteFinder (www.genealogy.com/links)

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.

A search engine (or index) draws on a database of web sites chosen for Internet searching. Not all indexes are the same. They vary in complexity, coverage, and how they present the results. Some search only the name, title and address of the web page (link), while others search an abstract (description). Some display only the link in the results, while others include a detailed description (a paragraph or more) of each site. A few give you the option of deciding which you want (short list or full description). Some (not all) remove duplicates. Some list sites by categories to help you search by topic, while others only provide an index.

All search engines return a hypertext link to connect directly to the site. Most tell you how many “hits” it found, and list a set number of them (10, 25, 50, ...), although many let you specify how many hits to list. Some list the URL (useful when printing), the size of the page to be retrieved in kilobytes (larger sizes take longer to load), or a relative score (the higher the score, the more closely related to the search term). Some search engines have interesting other options, such as Exalead.com.

Major search engines include ask.com, live.com, yahoo.com, google.com, dogpile.com and thousands more. There are also meta-search engines, which are search tools that send queries to several search engines for you, then combine the results from several into one hit list (the better ones eliminate duplicates and list those returned by multiple search engines at the top). Another useful tool is clustering search engines, such as clusty.com.

Search engines have limited success in finding names. One problem is that they aren’t limited to genealogical sites, and another problem is that they aren’t “smart” enough to distinguish names from words or non-genealogical names from genealogical names.

Search engines are still useful. A few tricks can greatly increase the likelihood of success:

¨ use quotes to indicate a phrase. Quotes mean they must appear just as shown, e.g., “Alan Mann”. Of course, you may need to also search for “Mann, Alan” or “Alan E. Mann”.

¨ Refine your searches by using + in front of required words or - in front of a word you don’t want. (e.g., +Mallard –duck means I want the Mallard name, but not duck sites).

¨ Use wildcards (*). A name spelled Kuykendall, Kuykendoll, or Kuykendahl could be searched all at once by entering Kuykend*.

¨ Use search engines for locality and/or record type searches. You are much more likely to get pages relevant to your goal when you search for Brooks Kentucky probates than when you search for Brooks will (you would get a hit for Garth Brooks will be appearing...)

¨ Don’t expect search engines to find your ancestors. Use them to find sites that may help you reach your research goal.

For more information on search engines, see www.alanmann.com/slcc/search2006.htm.

Find your way by trying out the search engines listed here. Spend a few hours experimenting (maybe I can teach method #1…) 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. Remember method #2 at the beginning? Investigate search engines, and soon people will be coming to you, the Internet expert.

©Copyright 1997-2006 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 any computer bulletin boards, must be secured in advance from the copyright holder.