STEVE MORSE'S ONE-STEP PROGRAMS

©2020 Donald R. Snow - Last updated 2020-06-22

Go to the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .
ABSTRACT:  Steve Morse's website -
- https://stevemorse.org/ -- has many search tools for family history including U.S. immigration, censuses, other databases, and conversion routines.  He is a computer scientist who recognized the difficulty of searching many large databases with the search tools on them, so he has written what he calls One-Step programs.  These take the minimal data that you enter and put it into various combinations for better searches of that database.  He started with the Ellis Island immigration database and now has more than 100 tools for it and other databases.  We will discuss some of these and show how to use them. The notes for this class with active links and related articles are on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html .

    WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

  1. Instructor is Donald R. Snow (snowd@math.byu.edu) of Provo and St. George, Utah.
  2. These notes with active internet links and related articles are posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html .
  3. Tips:  (1)  To put an icon on your desktop for these notes, or any webpage, just drag the icon from in front of the address in your browser onto your desktop.  (2)  To open a link, but keep your place in these notes, hold down the Control (CTRL) key while clicking the link.
  4. The problem for today:  What are Steve Morse's One-Step programs and how do you use them?
  5. STEVE MORSE'S WEBSITE

  6. Dr. Stephen P. Morse, PhD from NYU in Computer Engineering, is also a genealogist and realized that the search engines on some large family history databases are not user-friendly nor efficient, so he started writing what he calls One-Step programs to improve the searches.
  7. His website is  https://stevemorse.org/ -- It's easy to remember and the .org means it's non-profit
  8. Home page left side has a complete list of all his more than 100 One-Step programs -- at top is a Category Menu to go directly to any part below  
  9. Before using any of the programs it helps to reead the relevant parts of his "How-To" article on the home page -- https://stevemorse.org/onestep/onestep3.htm
  10. CATEGORIES OF TOOLS ON STEVE MORSE'S ONE-STEP WEBPAGE

  11. IMMIGRATION -- New York, Ellis Island, Castle Garden, All New York immigration, ship lists, manifests 
  12. IMMIGRATION -- Other ports - Baltimore, Boston, Galveston, Philadelphia, etc. 
  13. US CENSUSES - Census information, searching by name, Enumeration Districts
  14. PHONETIC MATCHING -- Soudex, Daitch-Mokotoff, and other systems
  15. CANADIAN AND UK CENSUSES 
  16. NEW YORK STATE CENSUSES
  17. VITAL RECORDS -- U.S. Social Security, accessing FamilySearch, NY City and New Jersey birth, marriage, and death records, naturalization records
  18. CALENDARS AND MAPS -- Calendar conversions, elapsed time, map programs, latitude and longitude to and from addresses  
  19. ALPHABETS AND LANGUAGE -- Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, Greek, Arabic, Cyrillic characters
  20. HOLOCAUST AND EAST EUROPE
  21. GENETIC GENEALOGY -- DNA 
  22. JEWISH RECORDS -- East European, Russian, Israeli
  23. CREATING YOUR OWN SEARCH TOOLS -- DIY
  24. ABOUT STEVE MORSE -- Bio, history, publications, awards
  25. MISCELLANEOUS -- Computer and internet info, e.g. Last-Minute bidding on eBay, Googling helps, computer helps
  26. DEMOS, EXAMPLES, AND COMMENTS

  27. To use some of Morse's One-Step programs regularly, you can set up a bookmark folder for their URLs. 
  28. General search tips: start with smallest "reasonable" terms and add more terms as needed; any term you search for that is not in the record eliminates many possible hits; Example, start with only surname and first initial, and only add more terms to narrow the search, if you get too many hits
  29. Steve Morse searches have the filled-in form in one browser tab and the search results in another tab, so you can go back and edit the search terms easily.
  30. U.S. Immigration and examples
    1. Immigration is an important part of family history and searches are not simple.
    2. Good information about U.S. immigration is in Morse's How-To article on home page
    3. Good FamilySearch Wiki article on U.S. immigration at  https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/United_States_Immigration_Online_Genealogy_Records
    4. Examples from Steve Morse's How-To article -- Irving Berlin and Albert Einstein
    5. His "One-Step Immigration Triangle":  Passenger Names <==> Ship Arrivals <==> Microfilm Rolls
  31. Census examples and enumeration districts
  32. Social Security Death Index (SSDI) examples
    1. You have to select database to search and there are several SSDIs
    2. Different SSDIs yield additional info
  33. Historical Records on FamilySearch (LDS Records) -- examples
  34. Conversion Programs
    1. Addresses to and from latitude and longitude
    2. Elapsed Time
  35. CONCLUSIONS

  36. Steve Morse's One-Step programs are easy to use and usually give more complete searches of large databases.
  37. You could experiment with some of his programs to see how they work and see if you want to use any.
  38. Even if you don't use any of his programs regularly, remember the kinds of things he has for when you do need them.