Using Search Engines

[Neil Sutherland]

OK ... lets face it ... there is no coincidence that genealogy has exploded as a hobby over the last ten years as a result of the explosion of the internet. For the genealogist, the access to, and sharing of, information has never been easier. The ability of people in far flung places to communicate with each other and share their findings has helped immensely. No doubt though, that Search Engines (such as Google, MSN, Yahoo etc) have also helped in gathering information and also in finding others who have the same interests.

So, here's my number one tip for searching names on the internet:

Use quotes around the name you're looking for. For example "Adam Sutherland".

If you entered Adam Sutherland without the quotes in Google for instance, you will be be returned with just over 2.1 million sites. Thats because Google finds all the sites with the words Adam and Sutherland, not necessarily in that order and possibly 20 paragraphs apart. It would find "... Adam and Eve were actually in Sutherland".

Put the name in quotes and you immediately narrow it down to 13,000 sites. Alright, still too many, so add Orkney to the phrase. Its only a single word, so you don't need to put that into quotes, e.g. "Adam Sutherland" Orkney... and bingo! you're down to 150 hits.

Try it ... go to Google (Not the search bar at the bottom of the page).

[Neil Sutherland]

Have you ever been faced with a page found by your search engine with lists of names, places and dates which seem to go on for ever?

If you are using Google, instead of clicking on the title link at the top of the returned site on the Google page, click on the "cached" link underneath it. That will then in turn take you to the same page, but your search term will be highlighted so it will be quicker to scroll through the page to find the desired searched term.

[di]

Great Tips Neil...thank you. Di