INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET
GENEALOGY
©2007
by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes
Return to Don's
Class
Listings page or to the home page of Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group . This page was last
updated 8 Apr 2007.
WELCOME AND
INTRODUCTION TO CLASS
- Welcome
- Instructors
are Donald R. and Diane M. Snow, 801-225-7123 in
Provo, Utah
and 435-673-1932 in St.
George, Utah (snowd@math.byu.edu,
dms34@juno.com)
- These notes with
active Internet links are
posted on the
Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group website http://uvtagg.org
under Class Outlines, Don's Listings.
- This class is
an introduction to using the Internet in genealogy.
- Definition
of terms -- ISP (Internet service provider), URL
(Uniform resource locator = web address, email address), modem (what
connects your computer to the phone line), browser (program on your
computer that web sites are viewed with -- Internet Explorer, Netscape,
Firefox), search engine (web site and program that indexes other web
sites
-- Google, Alta Vista, Dogpile), email list (people with a
common interest who send emails to a central source which distributes
them to everyone subscribed to the list)
USES
OF THE INTERNET IN
FAMILY HISTORY
- Estimated that about 1/4 to 1/3 of all
Internet use is
related to
family
history
- Email -- family, email lists by surname,
place, topic
- Web sites
- Education
web sites about FH -- online lessons, classes,
courses, notes,
descriptions, helps -- mostly free
- FH
web sites -- personal, organization, volunteer data
projects, commercial --compiled data, indices, primary data
- Message
boards and queries
- Other
helpful web sites -- maps,
history,
governmental,
religious, organizational
- Search
tools -- search engines, genealogy search engines
(specialized to search for FH), name
indices
SEARCH
TECHNIQUES
- General principles for searching
- (1) Start with the smallest
amount of data and add more, only if you get too many hits
- If you put in too much data you may miss
that combination of the data, if any piece is in
slightly different form
- Examples --
don't put in parents' or spouse's names
at start since they
may not be in the database exactly the way you have them
- (2) Try variations
- Examples
-- besides Richard try Rchd, Rich., and
just R, and Wootton, Wooton, Wootten, etc.
- (3) Don't assume you know the spelling since spelling
wasn't really considered seriouosly until about 150-200 years ago
- Example -- Abigail, Abagail, Abigal,
Abigale, Abbagil
- Search techniques vary,
so see what that site requires and
read their Help screens
- Some techniques
that are used on many
sites -- see
their Help
screen to see if these work on a particular site
- Quotation marks keep the phrase together in that
order,
e.g.
"Joseph Smith Jr.", but would then miss "Smith, Joseph Jr."
- An asterisk * as a wildcard -- can be used to represent
anything so Johns*n
picks up Johnson, Johnsen, Johnston, etc.
- A
plus sign + means this word must be included
- A
minus sign - means this word must not be included --
very useful to exclude stuff when you get too many hits in Google, for
example
- AND means both items must be there
- OR means either one or both items must be there
- Soundex
searches -- if available, they pick up names that
sound
like the one you typed, even if not spelled that way
SOME HELPFUL WEB
SITES FOR FAMILY HISTORY SEARCHES
- http://www.familysearch.org
-- LDS Church's major FH web site
- Try
searching for one of your own ancestors under the
Search tab
- Try searching for your surname in the
FHLC (Family
History
Library
Catalog)
- http://www.linkpendium.com/
-- Linkpendium -- links to almost 6 million categorized FH web sites
- http://www.cyndislist.com
-- Cyndi's List -- links to over 260,000 categorized FH web
sites
- http://www.rootsweb.com
--
Rootsweb is the oldest FH web site
- Many
people have contributed their indices and
databases
to post on RootsWeb
- http://www.usgenweb.com
--
USGenWeb project
- Every county in the
U.S. (over 3,000) has a web page
and
someone assigned to gather records and link them
- Try
searching in some U.S. county where you
have
ancestors.
- http://ancestry.com
-- largest
commercial FH site, many databases, all US Censuses -- a few parts are
still free in FHC's
- Heritage Quest
Online -- 25,000 FH books
online,
US Censuses, other data -- available by using your public library card
in many areas
- http://www.warnes.net/Teslacorp/GenealogyLinks
or try http://genealogy-links.org
-- Marie Taylor's collection of links to lots of LDS history and FH web
sites
- http://www.google.com
-- one
of the biggest and most helpful search engines -- search it for names,
places, events, even pictures
- A
helpful genealogy searcher for Google -- http://www.genealogy-search-help.com/
- Try searching for your own name and an ancestor's name
- Try searching for the picture of an ancestor -- type in
name
and
click on Images
- http://www.maps.google.com
-- good for maps, shows map and aerial view
- http://clusty.com/ --
search engine that "clusters" the results into categories for you
- http://www.dogpile.com
--
is an example of a "meta-search
engine", i.e. it searches with several search engines, not just one
- Try a Dogpile search for some name and see what
comes
up.
- http://uvtagg.org -- Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group web page -- has all my FH class notes, including my LDS/Utah notes and Nauvoo Databank notes which have many links for LDS data
- http://www.ancestorhunt.com/ --
free searches (be careful of getting into the pay ones)
- http://www.gensource.com/ --
commercial site, but has links to lots of databases
- http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/3916/search/
-- Ancestor Search, a directory of genealogy surname search
engines
- http://www.searchforancestors.com/
-- Ancestor Search, free genealogy database search engines (be careful
of the
pay ones)
- http://surnamesupersearch.com/
-- Free Genealogy Search Engines (be careful of the pay ones)
- http://www.academic-genealogy.com/topsearchenginesdirectories.htm
-- search engines and info on genealogy
EMAIL
LISTS AND BLOGS
- Email lists
- Many
types -- surname lists, location lists, genealogy
program lists, Family History Center lists, other topic lists
- Most genealogy lists are open to anyone
to subscribe at no
charge -- you then receive all messages from the list and you
can send notes and queries yourself
- For lists
of genealogy email lists
and
how to subscribe, see
- Can usually subscribe in two different modes --
regular mode so you get each message as a separate message,
and digest
mode so you get a whole block of messages, e.g. all the messages for
each day, in one big email
- Many email
lists have archives
of past
messages
that can be searched without joining the list
-- but then you can't
participate in the discussion on topics you want to share
- Message Boards -- like email lists, except you post your message or query and people can search for key words -- http://boards.rootsweb.com/
- Blogs (short for web logs) are
running comments about
topics -- called "RSS feed", read with a weblog reader (free)
- Helpful to keep up to date on changes, articles,
new
things -- see http://rssgenealogy.com/
for many genealogy blog articles
- Can download a
free RSS reader and select the blogs you want, genealogy,
news, etc., e.g. http://www.feedreader.com/
has a free reader
- The
blog reader downloads the latest entries to your computer for you
- Can also import all your Favorites
(bookmarks)
from Internet
Explorer and it will keep track of changes on them
ASSIGNMENT
- Check Linkpendium for Hancock County,
Illinois
and see how many links are listed. -- http://www.linkpendium.com/
- Check Linkpendium for your surname and see what links
you find. -- http://www.linkpendium.com/.
Is there an email list for your surname?
- Do
a Google search on your own name and then an
ancestor's name to see what comes up.
-- http://www.google.com
- Find a map and aerial view overlay of Nauvoo on http://www.maps.google.com.
- Do a search on http://www.familysearch.org
for one of your grandparents.
Return to Don's
Class
Listings page or to the home page of Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group .