Google the Genealogists Friend

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Helen V. Smith Researcher, Author and Speaker Email: HVSresearch@bigpond.com Twitter: @HVSresearch Blog: http://helenvsmithresearch.blogspot.

1 Helen V. Smith Researcher, Author and Speaker Blog: ABN Google the Genealogists Friend Genealogists know and love the search abilities of Google. It is the most commonly used search engine (but not the only one. It is worthwhile to do searches using other search engines at intervals as all search engines index pages differently). Remember not everything is on the web but more is being added moment by moment so repeating searches is worthwhile. As genealogists we are interested in localised searches so if your place of interest is the United Kingdom use the UK Google site eg if Australia use the Australian site. You can always use Google to find the search page for that country. Remember if you are using the german Google page it will usually be in German ratehr than English. Google does not worry about punctuation. Searches are case insensitive: new south wales brings back the same number of results as New South Wales. For searches be brief, use a few precise words even though you can use up to 32 words in a search string. Google does assume the most important terms start the search string. If you want an exact phrase, put the exact words within inverted commas. "James Quested" but this search won t find James Cephas Quested "James * Quested" but this search with a wildcard would return James Cephas Quested and James Cepahas Robert Quested. For a date or number range you can find numbers in a range: "James * Quested" would find instances of James within those date ranges or if you wanted to buy a camera: camera $300..$500 would return cameras within those ranges. There are three Boolean search operators AND OR NOT Google automatically assumes that if you put in two words such as Quested England you want Quested AND England. If you don t want a term returned such as my issue with the book A Passage to India which has a main character named Quested and unfortunately is a book that has been assigned to English classes for quite a while so Quested NOT India would remove any pages that include India. I would also miss out on pages that had a James Quested as a soldier in India so you need to be aware of this. Another option is to use the minus sign instead of NOT eg Quested -India. A better search would be Quested -"A Passage to India" For the Boolean operators they need to be in capitals and a space between them and the terms. For the other options mentioned (including the minus sign you cannot have a space). Sometimes you want Google to find related terms birth OR baptism (Google used to have a synonym search using the ~ sign but this no longer works so you need to use the OR. Helen V Smith Page 1

2 Search operators are words that can be added to searches to help narrow down the results. There are a number of operators that can be used to include words or exclude them. (You also have the option of using the advanced search page that has all the operators built in: Using these search operators helps when you are searching for surnames that are also common usage words such as Fox genealogy Brisbane -animal -news -trucks would find Fox family in Brisbane but not return any fox animal sites, Fox news sites, or Fox trucking line sites. You can also do a variety of other searches: define:cordwainer will return you a definition of the term (a shoemaker that uses codovan leather) site: this can be useful if you want to restrict your search results to only certain types of pages eg vaccination site:.gov would only return sites that were government sites. Or Quested site:rootsweb.com will return pages that mention Quested at Rootsweb.com To find sites similar to a web address you already know use the related:web address would return sites similar to the one you had first found, ie related:ancestry.com Filetype searches to find files with a certain extension such as Quested filetype:ged will retun gedcoms that have the word Quested within. Asterix as a wildcard. Joh* would return John, Johnson, Johnsen, Johnathan, Johns, Johansen. You cannot start a query with the asterix and you need a minimum of three letters prior to using your query ie Joh* not Jo*. More operators: inurl: Query words must appear in the URL of the page intitle: Query words must appear in the title of the page intext: Query words must appear in the text of the page Google is more than straight searches. Google Images: I wanted a picture of the ship in which my father emigrated to Australia so I used Google images to find an image of the Asturias. You can also do a Google reverse image search where you are searching to see if your image is on the web. This is better at finding place style photos although it is worth trying some family photos as that unknown cousin may have uploaded a family photo onto their blog and theirs might be labelled on the back! You could identify a building such as a church or landmark. Helen V Smith Page 2

3 Once you have set up your search you should run it regularly but there is no reason why you should have to physically do it yourself as you can set up a Google alert where Google does it for you and sends the results to your . You do need to be signed into your Google account when you set up the alert. Type in the search string then click on options to set up how often you are notified, whether it searches all the web (usual) or restrict to news or blogs etc. Then wait for the s to arrive. You can also do a search within Google Blogs. Blogs or WebLogs are ways people can easily publish stories and information to the web. They are used by individuals and organisations. It is very easy to start your own blog and Google blogger is free to use. Gmail is Google . It is always best to have a Gmail address as it doesn t matter then if you cahnge your ISP (internet service provider) and people can still find you even years after you post that query on the forum. Google is also great for collaborating with other researchers. You could set up a family blog, and also use Google Drive which has a word processing program, spreadsheet, presentation and form software. It is also available on mobile platforms. Google Books is another fantastic resource Google has digitised out of copyright books which you are able to download as full text PDFs and/or able to save in your own online library. Google has also scanned many in copyright books and these Google will search and return a snippet view (the amount shown will depend on the agreement between Google and the publisher)so at least you know how many times your search term is mentioned in the book and get a bit of context about how it is mentioned. In all cases you will also get information about the book including title, author, date of publication, book length. The more modern books you will also be told the ISBN. You can aslo do an advanced search in Google books. Internet Archive: (not a Google site but another fantastic site for accessing books, video and much more. Queensland State library have digitised and made available around 1000 out of copyright books freely available to download). Google Scholar: allows you to search for academic articles about a topic. There are many historians publishing about our areas of interest eg brick making in Kent, coastguards, migration etc. You can also set up an alert so that when Google scholar finds a new article in your area of interest it will send you an . Google News: Provides an easy way to search historical newspaper archives which have been digitised by Google. Unfortunately, Google is not continuing with this project possibly due to some digitising issues but if your newspaper was only digitised by Google you would still be very happy. Pay sites may be returned in the search as well as free sites. Google Translate: Google's free online language translation service instantly translates text, documents and web pages into currently 103 languages including Scots Gaelic. You will get the gist of the page and it will be technically correct but the syntax is often not common usage in the translated language. Helen V Smith Page 3

4 The way we use language changes over time and at times the meaning of a word can change so if you are translating letters written in the past you need to keep this in mind. YouTube: started back in 2005 and while it has many funny cat videos it has so much more. You can pretty much find a video on anything including genealogy. There are many videos of use to family historians including old news footage, family movies that have been uploaded, instructional videos about researching sertain types of records/places, how to use family history programs etc. There are a number of people who upload their lectures to YouTube and you can view their uploads for free. Google Earth: You need to download the program to your computer. It is free. With Google Earth you can travel virtually to anywhere that has been filmed. Even a number of museums and buildings and now you can even swim underwater on the Great Barrier Reef. You can visit a variety of places of interest. For family historians you can visit from where your ancestors were from. Certainly if your ancestor was from London the area may not look the same as when they were there but if they were from a rural area that has not been developed you can get an idea of how the place was. Even if the buildings have been demolished you don t demolish mountains so the general geography will be similar as the land doesn t move. You are able to pin places of interest. You are also able to upload photos of interest where you have put your place pin. It is not just modern maps on Google Earth. There are also historical imagery being added. There are a number of historical maps from the David Rumsey collection being added, mainly from the USA` at present. As well as viewing a satellite/aerial view of your place you are also in many places able to walk the streets using Street View. It is an amazing feeling to walk the streets where your ancestor walked. Using Google Earth you can make a family history tour of your ancestor s migration route. There are many ways you could use the imagery in your family history and it is a great way of getting your family s attention. Just talking about your family history won t have the same impact as showing them a video of the places they lived as you have recorded the family history place tour. Google Maps makes it easy to put your person in place on a map. To get the best out of Google Maps you should be signed into your Google account. If you have a Gmail you have a Google account and if not it is free and very easy to get yourself an account. (Go to Click Create an account, then follow the prompts). I'm going to show how easy it is to make a map. This one will be a simple map showing where eight of my ancestors were born in England. First I set up a file in Excel (or you can use the free spreadsheet program Sheets in Google) then save it as a CSV file (you will need the file so remember where you saved the file) Helen V Smith Page 4

Then I went to Google Maps (https://www.google.

Click on Create a new map and you are taken to the next screen.

Or you can click on Import and import the CSV file from my computer.

5 Then I went to Google Maps ( where I have the option of creating a map or opening a previously saved map. Click on Create a new map and you are taken to the next screen. You have the option of entering an address and you have annotation tools available. Or you can click on Import and import the CSV file from my computer. You are then asked to choose the column to position your place marks. In my file it is the column "place". Then I pick the column to title my place markers which is for my file "Name" then click finish and Google Maps will create your map. It will place pins in at each place point. Then title the map. You have the options of colouring your pins and also adding extra Helen V Smith Page 5

You save the map and then you can click Share to get the URL of the map and the option to share it to

6 information and even a photo at each pin. The Map will be saved in your Google drive ready for later editing or use. You save the map and then you can click Share to get the URL of the map and the option to share it to Facebook, G+, Twitter or with your family. You can download it, print it, use it on your website, in your family history book or on your blog. Google definitely the genealogist s friend! Helen V Smith Page 6

Ten Tips for Smarter Google Searches Date: Dec 1, 2006 By Michael Miller. Article is provided courtesy of Que.

Page 1 of 5 Ten Tips for Smarter Google Searches Date: Dec 1, 2006 By Michael Miller. Article is provided courtesy of Que. Most people use Google in a very inefficient and often ineffective manner. If