Getting the most out of Google

Getting the most out of Google

Rosemary Kopittke

Google and family historyCan 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 searchingThis 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

Case & Common wordsGoogle 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 derbyshire624,000 results

beeston AND derbyshire AND mugginton18,600 results

OR

beeston derbyshire OR cheshire942,000 results

beeston AND derbyshire624,000 results

Minus (-)

beeston derbyshire OR cheshire942,000 results

beeston derbyshire OR cheshire -nottingham371,000 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 genealogy105,000 results

beeston ~genealogy1,160,000 results

“Quotes”

francis beeston stockport79,600 results

“francis beeston” stockport46 results

Wild card (*)

“john beeston” derbyshire1,110 results

“john * beeston” derbyshireJohn F Beeston

John Francis BeestonJohn 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 searchbeeston

4,000,000 results~genealogy beeston

1,160,000 results

~genealogy beeston derbyshire370,000 results

~genealogy “humphrey beeston” mugginton45 results

Cached

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.