dons-wolframalphawebsite.html

THE WOLFRAMALPHA WEBSITE IN FAMILY HISTORY

©2020 by Donald R. Snow -- Page last updated 2020-12-07
Return to the  Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page  or  Don Snow's Class Listings Page .
ABSTRACT: The WolframAlpha website is a Computational Search Engine which means that it answers questions or queries you type in.  Examples are historical events, money conversions, summaries of migration and population, information about diseases, and much more.  The basic website is free with a "Pro" commercial version. It helps fill out the stories of our ancestors' lives. The notes and related articles for this class, all with active internet links, are posted on my website https://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. The notes for this class and related articles, all with active internet links, are posted on my website  https://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html .  
  3. Tips:  (1)  To put an icon on your desktop for the URL for these notes, or any webpage, just drag the icon that is in front of the address in your browser to your desktop.  (2)  To open a link while keeping your place in the original page, hold down the Control key while clicking the link, so the link opens in a new tab. 
  4. The problem for today:  What is the WolframAlpha website and how do you use it in family history?

    5. THE WOLFRAMALPHA WEBSITE

  5. The WorlfamAlpha website is at  https://www.wolframalpha.com/  
  6. Founded in 2009 by Stephen Wolfram of Wolfram Research which provided the symbolic computational program Mathematica.
  7. Is a Computaritnal Search Engine so it gives information, not just links 
  8. Some references
    1. About WolframAlpha -- https://www.wolframalpha.com/about/
    2. Wikipedia article -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WolframAlpha
    3. My Freeware Corner article Nov 2016 with lots of examples -- http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-freewarecorner-2016-11-usingwolframalpha.html 
    4. What is WolframAlpha? -- https://www.wolframalpha.com/tour/
    5. Examples by topic -- https://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/?src=input
    6. It is a Question Answering website --  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Question_answering
    7. YouTube video about using WolframAlpha in mathematics -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuTLtkkyl2c 
  9. The hardest part of using it is wording your question correctly.

    10. EXAMPLES OF USES IN FAMILY HISTORY
  10. Examples to type in for information -- Note that caps don't matter.
  11. Population and history -- Oberwolfach
  12. Money and its values at different times -- US $2.50 1849 in 2020 dollars, US $3000 1829 in 2020, US $1 1829 in 2020   
  13. Events such as wars and who was involved -- Korean War
  14. Climate and weather conditions -- St. George, Utah 21 March 1958
  15. Migration -- Utah migration  
  16. Diseases and epidemics -- ague, coronavirus pandemic, spanish flu
  17. Calendars -- 10 oct 2012 
  18. Organizations -- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 

    19. CONCLUSIONS

  19. The WolframAlpha website is a Computational Search Engine so it answers queries and these are very helpful in family history.
  20. You might want to try finding something such as the weather on the day and place you were born.  Or converting $1 from that day to today's value.
    21. Return to the  Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page  or  Don Snow's Class Listings Page .    U