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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. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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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.