Getting the most out of Google Rosemary Kopittke

Google and family history Can we really find out all about our family using Google? Obviously Google knows nothing about your family but you can learn to use Google to find many things which you may not know exist.

Google knows nothing about family history It simply compares what you type in with strings of characters it finds on the internet ▫beeston may be a surname or a place but for Google it implies nothing more than a string of letters The results can come in many forms ▫web pages ▫books ▫images and videos ▫blogs, maps and much more

Keyword searching This is probably what we all do but do we understand how to filter all the results we get? Single keyword search ▫Generally not much use – too many results ▫Worth trying for rare family names Multiple keyword search ▫Will help filter out unwanted results

Google Suggest Google tries to “suggest” searches you may be interested in Based on searches others who live near you have done

Google Suggest Google tries to “suggest” searches you may be interested in Based on searches others who live near you have done

Case & Common words Google is not case sensitive It does not matter whether you use upper or lower case or even a mixture Genealogy, GENEALOGY or gENealOGy will all achieve the same number of matches Common words ignored ▫and, or, if, not, the, to, etc

Basic search commands AND to include multiple words OR to include one word or the other Minus sign “-” to exclude words Tilde (~) to include similar words “Quotes” to specify an exact match for the words inside the quotes Wild card (*) to include unknown string sequences

AND beeston AND derbyshire 624,000 results beeston AND derbyshire AND mugginton 18,600 results

OR beeston derbyshire OR cheshire 942,000 results beeston AND derbyshire 624,000 results

Minus (-) beeston derbyshire OR cheshire 942,000 results beeston derbyshire OR cheshire -nottingham 371,000 results beeston derbyshire OR cheshire -nottingham -castle 211,000 results

Tilde (~) “~” means it will find similar words ▫So for genealogy it will also find words like family history, family tree, cemetery etc beeston genealogy 105,000 results beeston ~genealogy 1,160,000 results

“Quotes” francis beeston stockport 79,600 results “francis beeston” stockport 46 results

Wild card (*) “john beeston” derbyshire 1,110 results “john * beeston” derbyshire John F Beeston John Francis Beeston John the Baptist Church, Beeston 4,670,000 results

Plus (+) Many people mistakenly think “+” is the same as AND “+” means spell it EXACTLY this way If no plus sign then “jump” would also return matches for “jumped”, “jumping” etc - this is called stemming Not normally of much use in genealogy searches

Full search beeston 4,000,000 results ~genealogy beeston 1,160,000 results ~genealogy beeston derbyshire 370,000 results ~genealogy “humphrey beeston” mugginton 45 results

Cached

Google account Free Easy to use Many benefits – will just focus on two: ▫Gmail ▫Google Books “My Library”

Google Books

Maps & Places Variously listed as “Maps” (top) & “Places” (side menu) Locate and “visit” places on documents General view plus a street view

Images and videos

Loading your own images Benefit of having your images on the web How best to name your images ▫file.jpg, DSP2098.jpg and IMG1479.jpg ▫humphrey_beeston_mugginton.jpg or kopittke_schwartow.jpg Your description – should include as much information as you know and give some way for anyone interested to contact you

Google alerts

Search a site

Advanced search

Translation tools

Google and family history Google can’t solve all your research problems but using it more effectively will add enormously to what you learn about your family.