Internet Search Tips
There’s a ton of useful historic and genealogical research on the
internet, but it can be frustrating to find if you don’t know the proper way to
pose your questions when doing an internet search. Optimize your search with these tips.Optimize your search with these tips.
Use several search engines. A search engine is a service that searches for websites
containing key words that you use in posting your query (question). Each
evaluates website information in a little different way, so the results may be
a bit different. There are dozens of search engines, but the most useful for
family history are Google.com, Yahoo.com, Ask.com., MSN.com, and AOL.com.
Posting your questions
Start your search narrow with lots
of key words. Most search engines use Boolean
logic to do the search. You can control how narrow or wide your search is by adding
words and symbols to your query. These tools also give you access to specific
resources like newspapers and libraries. Try these shortcuts on searches within
websites as well.
NOT before a word or phrase that you want excluded. Must be all in CAPS.
- immediately before a word or phrase with space before – same
as NOT.
OR all
in CAPS gives results with any of the terms you specify. Broad search.
AND between
words and phrases gives results for wherever those two or more words
both appear anywhere in a paragraph. Narrow search.
+ immediately
before a word or phrase with space before + same as AND.
W/DOC placed
between words or phrases and it will search for are all instances of those
words anywhere in the document.
“ ” around
a phrase locks the words together. Post Smith Family History and you are
likely to get results for both Smith Family and Family History. With quotations
marks around “Smith Family History” the results will relate to only
that phrase. It also forces the search to include certain common words, like
about and will, which ordinarily would be ignored.
Advanced
Search Google and Ask.com have an advanced search feature
on their search page that makes it easy to do searches with all
of the above restrictions.
* immediately
after a word will search for all forms of that word.
~ immediately before a word does a synonym search.
AUTHOR(author name) search
by name of the author.
SOURCE(newspaper title) restricts the search to only the newspaper you have in the
parentheses.
PDN(mm/dd/yyyy) search by published date.
Specific date PDN(04/12/1941)
or range
PDN(>11/15/1870AND<06/05/1911)
YR(yyyy) for
a specific year
YR(yyyy-yyyy) for
a range of years
yyyy..yyyy Another
way to query a range of years. Works for other numerical queries (e.g.,$50..$100)
YR(<yyyy) before
a specific year
YR(>yyyy) after
a specific year
AT(article type) restricts
search to particular type of data—letters, marriage, birth, review, etc.
AT(photo-standalone) results in articles with images
Retrieve Lost Web Pages
That “File Not Found” message you sometimes get when searching
the internet may not be exactly true. There may still be a page from the last
time the page was indexed. Hit the back button to return to the search page. At
the bottom of the of the meta tag (site description), beside the URL look for a
link called “cached”.
Related Sites Treasures
Check out the “similar pages” or “more results” links at the
bottom of the meta tag of sites you really like.
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Copyright September 2009 Family History Coach All rights reserved Last update April 27, 2010
