BUNKER-L Archives

Archiver > BUNKER > 2003-05 > 1052318653


From: Mary-Gene Page <>
Subject: [Fwd: [SCGSI] Search Engine Tactics from Rootsweb Review]
Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 08:56:11 -0700


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [SCGSI] Search Engine Tactics from Rootsweb Review
Resent-Date: Thu, 1 May 2003 16:42:08 -0600
Resent-From:
Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 15:43:36 -0700
From: Kathy Busby <>
To:

I thought this was an excellent article and should be noticed by our
group. I know I hadn't tried some of those. Off to go try that with my
Sprung surname. You never know how many people Sprung from here to
there or sprung up from nowhere. Grin.
Kathy


1e. USING SEARCH ENGINES: Googling Your Ancestors
by Ted Pack
http://www.tedpack.org/

This will be new and exciting to some of you. Others of you will
wonder what I'll do next -- explain how to "dial" a telephone by
pushing the little buttons?

You can sometimes use a general search engine for genealogy. My
favorite is Google,
http://www.google.com
but there are others -- AltaVista, Lycos, MSN, Dogpile, AOL. They all
work about the same. The key is what they call an exact phrase, which
you enclose in quotation marks. Let's assume you are looking for Eltweed
Pomeroy and Malinda McCorkle, married in Pocatello, Idaho in 1888.

This argument in the search engine: Eltweed Pomeroy Malinda McCorkle
(without the quotation marks) means "show me all the pages that have the
four words Eltweed, Pomeroy, Malinda and McCorkle on them". You might
strike pay dirt right away; you might also get a page that listed
Eltweed
Smith, Pomeroy Murgatroyd, Malinda Smith and Ebeneezer McCorkle.

This argument in the search engine: "Eltweed Pomeroy" "Malinda McCorkle"
(with two sets of quotation marks) means "show me all the pages that
have the exact phrases 'Eltweed Pomeroy' and 'Malinda McCorkle' on
them". Given the rarity of the names, if you got a hit it would almost
certainly be useful.

However, if your ancestors are listed last name first, the argument
above won't get them. You won't find them if they have middle initials
on the page, either. This is a combination of exact phrase and any
match: "Eltweed Pomeroy" Malinda McCorkle

It says "show me all the pages with the exact phrase 'Eltweed Pomeroy'
and the two words Malinda and McCorkle somewhere on the page." This
argument would find a page with the sentence "Eltweed Pomeroy married
Malinda, second daughter of Alphonse McCorkle ..." or "Eltweed Pomeroy
married Malinda Q. McCorkle ...".

General search engines are not perfect. They don't have a Soundex
option, although Google will sometimes suggest alternate spellings for
you. Some of them require a plus sign with each word or phrase, although
Google doesn't. They work best for relatively uncommon names. If you are
looking for John Smith who married Mary Johnson in New York City, you'll
get a lot of hits, but your chances of getting the right one are slim.

Most importantly and worth repeating, the phrase "Eltweed Pomeroy" is
NOT the same as the phrase "Pomeroy, Eltweed" to a search engine. You
get what you ask for. I usually try to use enough words and phrases in
the argument that I get 20 hits or less. Quite often I don't get any,
but I'd rather get a few of the right hits than a thousand wrong ones.
In this case I would try all of these arguments:

Four pairs of exact phrases:
"Eltweed Pomeroy" "Malinda McCorkle"
"Pomeroy Eltweed" "Malinda McCorkle"
"Eltweed Pomeroy" "McCorkle Malinda"
"Pomeroy Eltweed" "McCorkle Malinda"

Four combination searches:
"Eltweed Pomeroy" Malinda McCorkle
"Pomeroy Eltweed" Malinda McCorkle
"Malinda McCorkle" Eltweed Pomeroy
"McCorkle Malinda" Eltweed Pomeroy

And, just in case one of them was listed without a spouse,
"Eltweed Pomeroy" Pocatello
"Pomeroy Eltweed" Pocatello
"Malinda McCorkle" Pocatello
"McCorkle Malinda" Pocatello

Permission to reprint articles from RootsWeb Review is granted unless
specifically stated otherwise, provided: (1) the reprint is used for
non-commercial, educational purposes; and (2) the following notice
appears at the end of the article: Previously published in RootsWeb
Review: Vol. 6, No. 18, 30 April 2003.
RWR Archives: http://e-zine.rootsweb.com/


==== CASOLANOCGS Mailing List ====
List address:
List manager:
SCGS website: http://www.rootsweb.com/~cascgsi/
List archive: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/casolanocgs
List search:
http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl?list=CASOLANOCGS

==============================
To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy
records, go to:
http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237




This thread: