INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET GENEALOGY

©2007 by Donald R. Snow

• Welcome and Introduction to Class
• Uses of the Internet in Family History
• Search Techniques
• Some Helpful Web Sites for Family History Searches
• Email Lists and Blogs
• Assignment

• 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
• 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
• For general family history lists -- http://www.cyndislist.com/mailing.htm
• For surname lists -- http://www.cyndislist.com/surn-gen.htm
• See many FH lists on Linkpendium http://www.linkpendium.com/
• 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

1. Check Linkpendium for Hancock County, Illinois and see how many links are listed. --  http://www.linkpendium.com/
2. Check Linkpendium for your surname and see what links you find. -- http://www.linkpendium.com/.  Is there an email list for your surname?
3. Do a Google search on your own name and then an ancestor's name to see what comes up. -- http://www.google.com
4. Find a map and aerial view overlay of Nauvoo on http://www.maps.google.com.
5. Do a search on http://www.familysearch.org for one of your grandparents.