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Google for Genealogists

Google for Genealogists. Google's mission statement. “Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.". As of March 2006, Google users can:. search through approximately 11.3 billion web pages search through approximately 1.3 billion images

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Google for Genealogists

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  1. Google for Genealogists

  2. Google's mission statement • “Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

  3. As of March 2006,Google users can: • search through approximately 11.3 billion web pages • search through approximately 1.3 billion images • Read millions of messages

  4. If printed: • the pages being indexed would result in a stack more than 700 miles high.

  5. Google

  6. So how does Google make money?

  7. Google’s Motto Don’t be evil

  8. Basic Concepts • static web pages • dynamic web pages

  9. Google Searches • Google will find most of the information that you and I post on the web, along with more information published by tens of thousands of other individuals and societies. • Google will not find the information stored within the databases of the big sites: Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org and others.

  10. Two popular types of search engines: • searchable subject indexes • Yahoo is a searchable subject index • full-text search engines • Google is a FULL TEXT search engine

  11. Google searches by words • Boolean logic • Upper/lower case is ignored • “Trivial words” are ignored: I, a, the, of, etc.

  12. Boolean AND is Assumed A search of: John Smith Denver Colorado Is the same as: John AND Smith AND Denver AND Colorado

  13. This can be changed by specifying Boolean terms • "John Smith" AND "Denver, Colorado" (the AND may be omitted) • This search will return results that contain both phrases

  14. Other Boolean searches can help • (John OR William) AND Smith AND Denver AND (Colorado OR CO) John Smith of Denver, CO John Smith in Denver, Colorado William Smith Colorado Mining Company in Denver, Texas

  15. Genealogy challenges • A search for Washington Harvey Eastman • Will produce many “hits” relating to photography in Washington, DC as well as references to many people named Harvey or Washington!

  16. Genealogy challenges • A search for “Washington Harvey Eastman” (with the quote marks) • Will not produce references to: • Washington H. Eastman • Washington Eastman • W. H. Eastman Etc.

  17. Genealogy challenges You can use a minus sign, meaning “NOT” A search for: Washington Harvey Eastman –Kodak Should eliminate most references to photography

  18. Google’s Special Syntaxes • intitle: • Restricts your search to the titles of Web pages • Example: intitle:”george bush”

  19. Google’s Special Syntaxes • inurl: • Restricts your search to the URLs of web pages • Example: inurl:help Will return: http://www.eogn.com/helpfile.html

  20. Google’s Special Syntaxes • intext: • Searches only the body text, ignoring link text, URLs and titles.

  21. Google’s Special Syntaxes • inanchor: • Searches for text in a page’s anchors (links). • Example: inanchor:”Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter”

  22. Google’s Special Syntaxes • site: • Allows you to narrow the search by a site or a top-level domain • Examples: • familysearch.org • Ancestry.com • edu

  23. Google’s Special Syntaxes • link: • Returns a list of pages that link to the specified URL • Example: link:http://www.eogn.com

  24. Google’s Special Syntaxes • cache: • Finds a copy of a web page that Google indexed even if that page is no longer available today or has since changed its contents. • Example: cache:www.eogn.com

  25. Google’s Special Syntaxes • daterange: • Limits your date to a particular date or range of dates that a page was indexed. • Note #1: It is the date that the page was INDEXED by Google, not the page CREATION date! • Note #2: Date format must be in Julian dates

  26. Google’s Special Syntaxes • filetype: • May specify to search only for PDF, Word (DOC), PowerPoint (PPT), Excel (XLS) or other file types.

  27. Google’s Special Syntaxes • related: • Finds pages that are related to other pages. • Example: related: www.eogn.com Returns a list of genealogy newsletters as well as a list of other newsletters owned by the owner of eogn.com.

  28. Google’s Special Syntaxes • info: • Provides a page of links to more information about a specified URL

  29. Google’s Special Syntaxes • phonebook: • Looks up telephone numbers • Example: phonebook:remling syracuse ny

  30. Advanced Search • Query Word Input • Language • Filtering • File Format • Date

  31. Advanced Search

  32. Setting Preferences • Language • Filtering • Number of Results • Results Window

  33. Setting Preferences

  34. Search news groups

  35. Need more information? http://www.google.com/support or http://www.google.com/help

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