DON'S FREEWARE CORNER -- NOV 2013
HELPS FOR GOOGLE SEARCHES IN FAMILY HISTORY
This page was last updated 2014-05-29
Underlined titles are links.
To Google search these notes and subpages CLICK
HERE and enter your search terms.
Return to Don's
Freeware Corner Page or Don's
Family History Class Notes Page .
=============================================================================================
DON'S FREEWARE CORNER 2013-11
HELPS FOR GOOGLE SEARCHES IN FAMILY HISTORY
©2014 Donald R. Snow
My Freeware Corner Notes are
printed in our Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group monthly
newsletter TAGGology and posted on my Family History Class Notes
webpage http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
, sometimes with updated information there.
HELPS FOR GOOGLE SEARCHES FOR FAMILY HISTORY
GOOGLE -- https://www.google.com
This month I will discuss a few helpful tips for using the
freeware Google search engine. This is not a program you can
download and use. Also, you must be connected to the
Internet, but it has some wonderful search capabilities for family
history and is free. Here are some helpful URLs about
searching in Google.
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/134479?hl=en
https://support.google.com/websearch/?hl=en#topic=3378866
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/136861?hl=en&ref_topic=3081620
Below are examples of search tips for Google. In each case,
when typing the search terms into Google, leave out the outside
quote marks. Some of these work in other search engines,
too.
1. To highlight the search terms on the
found websites there are extensions to use in the browser, e.g. in
Firefox, add the extension Find All. The URL is https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/googlebar-lite/
. This adds a toolbar to Firefox that includes a Google
entry box and a button to click to toggle highlights of the search
terms in the websites you find. It is very helpful to see
where the search terms occur on the websites so you don't have to
read through every line. If you have several search terms in
the search, it shows each in a different color so they are easy to
spot. Other browsers have similar extensions. To find
them do Google searches for things like "highlight search query
words chrome".
2. When you want to search only a specific
website for terms, do a site search, e.g. in Google enter
"site:uvtagg.org/classes/dons/ freeware" and you get all my class
notes that contain the word "freeware". Don't put any space
between "site:" and the URL, but do leave a space after the
website before the search terms you want. Try it on my notes
to find all places where I've mentioned OCR (= Optical Character
Recognition). Or try it on familysearch.org to find all
mentions of Mac for Macintosh computers. I've even found it
helpful on familysearch.org to find info on people, e.g. try
"site:familysearch.org "donald r. snow"" to find where I am listed
in the FamilySearch Catalog or "site:familysearch.org "eldon
stafford snow"" to go to my Dad's photos and stories page.
This is all without signing in to FamilySearch. There are
also some extensions for your browser that will allow you to
search only within the site you find, e.g. for the browser Opera
such an extension is called Search Within The Site.
3. To limit the Google search to a
specific time period include, for example, "1800..1900" in the
search terms. Here's an example: to find results about my
ancestor, Richard Snow, who shows up on a tax list in Woburn,
Massachusetts in 1645 and we think he was born in England in about
1598, I can search for ""r?chard snow" 1590..1600 england
massachusetts 1645". The double quote marks around r?chard
snow are so that it will search for the name in that form.
The question mark ? is so that it will also find words like
rychard or any other letter in the second place. The
[number]..[number] also works to limit searches to things like
prices, e.g. "$50..$100" or sizes, e.g. "property 1 acre..2 acres
woburn massachusetts".
4. The AROUND(n) command narrows down
searches to where the terms occur within (n) words of each
other. It is what is called a proximity search. For
example, ""richard snow" AROUND(10) avis" will find websites with
Richard Snow mentioned within 10 words of Avis, which was his
wife's name. You can sometimes find marriages this
way. Try ""joseph smith" AROUND(10) emma". This can
also be used to narrow down your searches to particular areas,
e.g. ""richard snow" AROUND(10) barbados". This finds
websites about the Richard Snow who arrived in Barbados in the
Caribbean in 1635 and who many have assumed was the same Richard
Snow as in Woburn, Massachusetts 10 years later. There is no
evidence that they are the same person and some evidence that they
are not.
5. To exclude hits that you know aren't
what you want use a minus (-) sign in front of the term, e.g.
""richard snow" massachusetts -benjamin -nicholas". This
search excludes any mention of Benjamin or Nicholas, both of whom
were Snows in Massachusetts in the Colonial times. Put the
-sign right next to the term to exclude, i.e. don't leave a space
between them. Or, if there is a well-known doctor with that
same name as your ancestor, you can include -doctor in the search
to eliminate those false hits.
6. To include terms that mean much the
same as your search terms include a tilde (~) in front of the
term. e.g. ~genealogy. Again, no space between the ~ and the
term. The tilde is usually on your keyboard in the upper
left hand corner next to the 1. This tells Google to include
searches for words like family history, family tree, history,
etc. There is no complete list of all the words Google uses
when the ~ is used, but you can generate such a list of synonyms
by subtracting out terms as you see them, e.g. start with
"murgatroyd ~genealogy" and note that genealogical also occurs, so
next search for "murgatroyd ~genealogy -genealogical"; note
additional words that occur and subtract them out, etc.
7. The Scholar search in Google is done by
going to
http://scholar.google.com and doing the search, e.g.
searching for ""richard snow" ~genealogy" in the Scholar search
only searches websites with scholarly information, e.g. journals.
These are usually more reliable than the general search, but of
course, may eliminate websites you want.
8. To find GEDCOM files online that
include people you are interested in include "ged" as a search
term since all GEDCOM files have that as their extension.
For example, searching for ""richard snow" ged" brings back hits
that include GEDCOM files. The "+index" term sometimes helps
since most GEDCOM files have an Index File that they are linked
to. To find pdf's that include your ancestor, add "pdf",
e.g. ""richard snow" pdf".
9. If you find a helpful webpage and want
to find others that may be related, use the Related command, e.g.
"related:uvtagg.org".
10. To find all URLs linked to a
particular website use the link command, e.g.
"link:uvtagg.org". This may lead you to other websites with
information you want that don't happen to have the search terms in
them.
There are many other Google search techniques for family history,
but these may help you find new information on your ancestors that
you didn't know about before.
==================================================================================
Return to Don's
Freeware Corner Page or Don's
Family History Class Notes Page .