Refine Your Searches with Google Search Operators

Searching online using Google Search becomes almost automatic over time. But unless you become aware of some of the additional tools available from Google, you may be driving in first gear without knowing how to shift gears.

Searching is the lifeblood of genealogists. Every time we sit down to find our ancestors or relatives, we are searching. How we search changes as we learn more about what we are trying to accomplish, but we can get to the point where we are stalled in our search efforts both by the availability of records and by our own limitations in understanding more effective ways to search. Online searching is a learned skill. No one is born with online searching skills. Everyone has to learn how to do effective searches.

First a word (really lots of words) about browsers and search engines. Browsers are the programs that run on your computer or other devices that connect you to the internet. Some common browsers include Chrome, Internet Explorer (now obsolete), Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Edge. There are dozens of other browsers out there. See Wikipedia: List of web browsers. Google's Chrome browser has well over half of all the market share for browsers worldwide. None of the others garner more than about 12% with Safari in second place and the other down in very low percentages. See Statcounter.com: Brower Market Share Worldwide. If you purchased a Windows-based computer, you probably inherited a Microsoft browser and have never changed. I usually have four browser programs on my computer and can switch between them if I encounter an issue with a website not functioning or displaying properly. There is a good reason for Chrome's popularity: it works and has a huge number of add-ons and extensions.

What about search engines? A search engine is a web-based program that uses your browser to search for information from websites on the internet. Search engines are browser independent so you can use any browser with any search engine. Google Search is the most popular browser in the world and has about an 87% market share in 2017. See Statista.com: Worldwide desktop market share of leading search engines from January 2010 to July 2017. There is always a reason for this kind of dominance. Microsoft's Bing, the second most popular search engine has a 5.7% market share. If you are using one of the other search engines, such as Bing, Yahoo, AOL or whatever, you might consider doing your serious genealogical searches using Chrome with Google. Enough said at this point, but I do think it is time I came back to this subject. In the past, I have done test searches and reported the results to show what happens with several search engines. I will do that again when I finish this post.

Google has several "search operators" which include special typographical symbols or commands that enhance or focus your searches. Google Search Help has a web page called "Refine web searches" that lists some of the commands and symbols available. I suggest looking through the list and selecting a few such operators to add to your search arsenal. I frequently use phrases in quotes to search for individal's names. Some people frequently use wildcards. I also use the command define: to define words and phrases.

There is also a list of search operators, power tips and other useful information on the MIT Libraries website in an article entitled, "Google Search Tips: Getting Started." One comment, however, is that the "+" or plus sign has been removed from Google's search operators. It has been deemed unnecessary.

I use very few search operators because I rarely need them. I have noted in several posts and presentations, that I can usually make a number of searches and find what I need in the time it takes to construct special formulaic searches.

Returning to the subject of searches

In a previous blog post, I focused on the idea of searching in the large online genealogy database programs using a rather complete entry. But what happens when the details about the person we are searching for are missing or scanty? That presents another more troublesome aspect of genealogical research: finding the information when you are not sure what documents might contain those records.

I recently spoke with the patron of the BYU Family History Library. She was getting back into genealogical research after a long absence and was asking for some direction as to areas she might pursue. The main issue was that she did not know what she did not know. She started asking about doing some research for missing German ancestors in the early 1800s. We were looking at the FamilySearch.org Family Tree and found that a considerable amount of research it been done on one German line. Her approach was similar to that of many others, i.e. looking at a fan chart and choosing to research a missing ancestor without knowing anything about the connection between the present and the past.

A basic component of genealogical research is moving from the known to the unknown. Obviously, this methodology implies that you know something. In the case of my patron of the BYU Family History Library, she had no knowledge whatsoever of the individuals, their history, the geography of Europe, or any other subject that would assist in doing research into German-speaking people. There is really no difference between this patron and anyone who starts to do research beginning with an entry in a genealogical database program that has little or no data.

It is axiomatic that a family tree is a network of interrelated individuals. Starting with you or me, we did not spring into existence out of nothing. The more we know about the events that occurred in our own lives the easier it will be to determine who our parents are. Likewise, extensive knowledge about her parents will lead to our grandparents. This concept is fundamental. Here is a quote from the Bible in Luke 15:8:

8 ¶ Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?

This is a perfect metaphor for genealogical research. First of all, the woman has 10 pieces of silver. From our standpoint, we have known relatives. The woman knows that she is missing one of the coins. If we organize our genealogy into a family tree we can easily see what is missing. But it is important to focus on what the woman did when she discovered that a coin was missing. She did not begin looking for the coin, she began by lighting a candle, i.e. learning about the environment where the item was lost and then began cleaning the entire house. The point here is simple. We need to clean our genealogical house before we do the search or while we are searching.

My BYU Family History Library patron was a perfect example of failing to understand this basic principle. She knew little or nothing about her family and yet she wanted to begin searching even though she was unaware of what was "lost."

Here is a classic example of a lack of information:

I take this example from the FamilySearch.org Family Tree because it is so easy to find them. According to the Family Tree, his father was Charles Peterson Garoutte, (b. 1810, d. 1896) who was both born and died in Adell, Dallas, Iowa. Garoutte was supposedly married to one of my cousins, Sarah Adeline Shepherd, (b. 1821 in Vermont, d. 1905 in Adel, Dallas, Iowa. Because of the dates of the places, it would seem to be reasonable to begin searching immediately for this individual. They should appear in a US Census record. But in doing so, we are ignoring the parable. First, we need to clean our house. There is the entry showing the family:

We can begin by looking at where each of the family members is recorded as being born and dying. With only two exceptions, every one of the family members was born and died in Iowa. But there is also a very evident duplicate entry. We have a child with exactly the same name. Are these the same person?

This is a very simple example. Cleaning up this family by adding in all the available records should resolve this issue immediately. In this case, the lost person will probably be found by merging him with the duplicate. Meanwhile, adding in all of the available records will clarify and verify each of the family members providing a basis for continuing research into their descendants.

Remember to clean your house before you search.

Using the Library of Congress for Genealogy

Don't underestimate the resources of the largest library in the world, the Library of Congress. Here are a few statistics:

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with more than 164 million items on approximately 838 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 38 million books and other printed materials, 3.6 million recordings, 14 million photographs, 5.5 million maps, 8.1 million pieces of sheet music and 70 million manuscripts.

The Library receives some 15,000 items each working day and adds approximately 12,000 items to the collections daily. The majority of the collections are received through the Copyright registration process, as the Library is home to the U.S. Copyright Office. Materials are also acquired through gift, purchase, other government agencies (state, local and federal), Cataloging in Publication (a pre-publication arrangement with publishers) and exchange with libraries in the United States and abroad. Items not selected for the collections or other internal purposes are used in the Library’s national and international exchange programs. Through these exchanges the Library acquires material that would not be available otherwise. The remaining items are made available to other federal agencies and are then available for donation to educational institutions, public bodies and nonprofit tax-exempt organizations in the United States.

Here is a breakdown by category:

24,189,688 cataloged books in the Library of Congress classification system

14,660,079 items in the nonclassified print collections, including books in large type and raised characters, incunabula (books printed before 1501), monographs and serials, bound newspapers, pamphlets, technical reports, and other printed material

125,553,352 items in the nonclassified (special) collections, including:

• 3,670,573 audio materials, (discs, tapes, talking books, other recorded formats)
• 70,685,319 manuscripts
• 5,581,756 maps
• 17,153,167 microforms
• 1,809,351 moving images
• 8,189,340 items of sheet music

15,071,355 visual materials including:

• 14,290,385 photographs
• 107,825 posters
• 673,145 prints and drawings

3,392,491 other items, (including machine-readable items)

The biggest draw for genealogists is the Local History and Genealogy Reference Services. 

https://www.loc.gov/rr/genealogy/

If you don't live close enough to Washington, D.C. to visit the Library of Congress, then you can access its digital collections online. But I might add that only a very small percentage of the entire library's content has been digitized. 

https://www.loc.gov/collections/

If you are fortunate enough to live close to the library were able to travel, you can do research in the library. Unless you are just a tourist, you probably need to prepare for your visit to do research in the collections. Here is the page with links with information for researchers using the Library of Congress.

http://www.loc.gov/rr/main/inforeas/

 Here is an explanation about reader registration. Those who do research in the library are called "Readers."

Users of the Library's research areas, including Computer Catalog Centers, and Copyright Office public service areas are each required to have a Reader Identification Card issued by the Library. Cards are free and can be obtained by completing a registration process and presenting a valid driver's license, state-issued identification card, or passport. Researchers must be 16 and above years of age at time of registration. Questions should be directed to 202-707-5278.

A Reader Identification Card is a permanent card which remains valid for two years. To ensure patron information has remained unchanged, at the end of the two year period, each reader must renew their card in person by returning to the Reader Registration Station and presenting a valid form of identification.

One area I am always interested in is the policy on copying records. Here is a screenshot of the explanation of copying and printing services with a link to the page.

Here is a further copy of the portion of the list that qualifies the use of cameras.

For me, the most valuable collection on the Library of Congress website is the Chronicling America, Historic American Newspapers.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

Every genealogist should become familiar with this website. You will find a wealth of resources and hopefully an incentive to visit the library in Washington, D.C.

FOIA Primer from Reclaim the Records' Efforts with the New Jersey Marriage Index, 1901-2016

http://mailchi.mp/reclaimtherecords/bfvk8vew84-1573069?e=87d2371d01

The Freedom of Information Act or FOIA is a powerful but somewhat controversial tool in liberating documents from the recalcitrant bureaucracy of the United States government and similar laws also help in the various individual states. Reclaim the Records, a 501 (c) (3) organization, is taking the lead in using the various acts to obtain public domain copies of various records that have been locked up by governmental inefficiency and incompetence.

In conjunction with a volunteer, Reclaim the Records has recently obtained copies of the New Jersey Marriage Index, 1901-2016. In their 17th Newsletter, you can read what is essentially a primer on how the process works. You may even be inspired to participate in the process yourself. Here is an explanation of where the newly liberated records can be searched.

Introducing the NEW JERSEY MARRIAGE INDEX, 1901-2016! These records are now totally digital, and totally free -- forever! Now you can research anyone who got married in the Garden State right from your home, still in your pajamas. 

We've posted these images at our favorite online library, the Internet Archive (archive.org). You can skip right to any year you want and flip through all the images, or you can download the records to your hard drive as JPG's, PDF's, and/or other formats. Each file is listed year-by-year (or occasionally by a year range), and then the marriages are listed alphabetically by surname. 

Just to be clear: these are images of the index, so this isn't a real text-searchable marriage database just yet. But rest assured that the usual genealogy websites we all know are going to start indexing projects and will make that happen eventually. (Yes, the Internet Archive does run automatic OCR on the text contained in the images, but the recognition quality isn't that great, so you're probably better off just reading through the images instead of trying to text-search.)

 The FOIA is described as follows in the FOIA.gov website:

Since 1967, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has provided the public the right to request access to records from any federal agency. It is often described as the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government. Federal agencies are required to disclose any information requested under the FOIA unless it falls under one of nine exemptions which protect interests such as personal privacy, national security, and law enforcement.

Each state in the United States has its own version of the FOIA. Here is a link to a list giving a link to each of the states. State FOI Resources. 

Genealogy's Star and the future of blogging

Probably, by the time you read this post, I will have published over 5000 posts on my Genealogy's Star blog. If I include the number of posts on my other blogs, Rejoice, and be exceeding glad... and Walking Arizona, as of the date of this particular post, I have published 9,958 blog posts. If I include the number of posts of some of my short-lived other blogs, I have easily written over 10,000 blog posts. In addition, during the same time these blog posts have been written, I have authored or co-authored over 25 books on genealogical research. By the way, if I continue to write at my present rate, I will shortly have over 10,000 blog posts from just my three current blogs. You can also add in over 100 genealogy videos on the BYU Family History Library YouTube Channel and innumerable handouts for classes and presentations. 

Blogging does have a history. Here is a short overview of the Wikipedia article on the "History of blogging."

While the term "blog" was not coined until the late 1990s, the history of blogging starts with several digital precursors to it. Before "blogging" became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, commercial online services such as GEnie, BiX and the early CompuServe, e-mail lists[1][2] and Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet forum software, such as WebEx, created running conversations with "threads". Threads are topical connections between messages on a metaphorical "corkboard". Some have likened blogging to the Mass-Observation project of the mid-20th century.

During the past couple of years, I have written about the decline in genealogy blog posting. Numbers don't tell everything. There is still a lot of information being put online by individual bloggers as opposed to institutional or commercial bloggers. There are some very active and very impressive new additions to the international blogging community. But notwithstanding those observations, much of the online communication is now going through Facebook and its subsidiary, Instagram.

This topic brings up my own present participation in the online community. As I mentioned recently in a blog post, my wife and I have been called as full-time FamilySearch missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to serve in the Washington D.C. area for one year beginning in December 2017. The calling process actually involves us volunteering to serve and then being officially "called" so it is not a surprise or anything like that. We will be serving as record preservation specialists helping to digitize original genealogically valuable records for FamilySearch.

There is some uncertainty about whether it will be possible to continue to write at my present level simply because of the time commitments of a full-time mission. But on the other hand, there is always the consideration of the time commitment to writing almost every day, day after day for years. Most recently, I have been relying on voice recognition software, Dragon Dictate on my iMac, to transcribe much of what I write. Although voice recognition software facilitates entering information, there is a trade-off in the increased number of typographical errors caused by the inaccuracies inherent in voice recognition. Additionally, I am accustomed to proofreading and rewriting as I go along. Right now, it is a matter of waiting to see exactly what the requirements will be in the future as to how much writing I will be able to if any at all.

One thing is certain, when I return to Provo I will have a lot to write about.

Cristoforo Colombo, Libraries, and Genealogy

Most of my "free time" as a child as I got older was spent reading. Consequently, I spent a great deal of time in libraries looking for books to read. It also seems inevitable to me now that I would end up working in a library. While I was both an undergraduate and a graduate student at the University of Utah, I was employed by the Marriott Library as a bibliographer so I spent, even more, time in the library. For one of my classes, I wrote a research paper on Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo). Because of what I had learned from working in the library, I extended my research to different physical areas within the library.

Now, this needs some explanation. As I worked in the library as a bibliographer, my job was to "verify" book orders from the university's professors. When a professor ordered a book, we had to verify the author, title, and publication information and then determine if the library had a copy of the book already. It was a challenging job because of the use of the old paper catalog and the usually vague information supplied by the professors. We were not supposed to contact the professors and so it was sort of a game to see if we could identify the books and other materials without making the obviously needed contact. We would commonly find a high percentage of the book orders already in the library's collections.

Our work frequently entailed physically searching the shelves in the library to find the book to make sure we had the right book. Our searches also included the books in the basement of the library that were waiting to be cataloged. After a couple of years of working in the library added to my years of searching for books to read, I had a pretty good idea about how to find almost anything.

Back to my research paper on Christopher Columbus. In looking for books about the "discovery" of America, I found several different places in the library where there were books about Columbus. I realized that the people who had cataloged the books and other publications had made individual decisions about categorizing books that were ultimately had the same topic. As I continued to search, I continued to find more information in different parts of the library.

This was probably my pivotal research experience. This experience prepared me for doing searches online that were not even imaginable at the time I was working in the library. In essence, I learned that the more you look, the more you find. When you think you have exhausted your search, you are really just beginning to find all the information that is likely available.

Looking back on the University of Utah library, I now realize how limited it actually was compared to the wealth of information now available on my home computer. But the concepts learned in working and doing research in the library are still helping me today to find things that seem to be impossible to find.

What does this have to do with genealogy? If you have to ask this question, you need to spend some time doing research in a library or online. Not browsing. Not looking at Facebook. But actual research with a definite goal in mind. Not giving up when your first few searches are unproductive. But real, extra effort searching that includes a broad spectrum of places and topics.

More Unanswered Questions

Some years ago, I posted a short list of some of my unanswered questions. I am here to report that over the intervening years a few of those questions have become irrelevant or outdated, but the rest are still unanswered. Since that blog post, as they say, a lot of water and few other things have gone under the bridge and now I have a lot more unanswered questions.

I am still starting my classes by asking those in attendance if they have any questions about the known or unknown universe and I am still getting the same blank looks from those in the class. I am not sure now if they are weighing my sanity or just don't have any questions. But usually, after a few minutes of thought, there are a few questions. I do have a lot of questions and, as I mentioned in the old post, some are serious and others not so serious. Here go the questions for today. But in this post, I am going to expand on these questions somewhat.

1. Why am I still writing this and my other blogs?

Comments: I am still observing a decided change in the amount and content of blog posts about genealogy. I have decided that there is only a limited number of new and interesting topics to write about and most bloggers seem to get discouraged in coming up with new material to write about. As you can probably guess, I don't seem to have that problem, but some ideas and topics do get recycled regularly. Genealogy is rapidly changing with the technology and the times and there aren't a lot of things you can say on Instagram or Twitter that are going to maintain the interest of those now becoming more interested in the topic.

2. How many genealogists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Comment: With many things in our world, technology is affecting lightbulbs. I am pretty certain that my grandchildren will not get this question at all for the reason that they may never see a lightbulb replaced.

3. What happens to all the microfilm in the world when there are no microfilm readers?

Comment: See. I told you that some of these questions were serious. Unfortunately, you will have to figure out which ones are and which ones aren't. Microfilm needs a specialized machine to be read. If you have visited the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, you may have noticed that the number of microfilm readers has dropped considerably and their use has also dropped considerably. Microfilm readers are mechanical devices and they will ultimately break down. I have been hearing reports for some time now about the lack of replacement parts. How will we access the microfilm that never gets digitized without readers?

4. Where is Carmen Sandiego and who were her parents?

Comment: You can probably guess that most of my real questions revolve around the impact that technology has had and will continue to have on genealogy and genealogical research. Perhaps, as those who grew up with computers, get older, the issue of the effect of technology will become about as obvious as the effect of automobiles on American culture. You might not be aware but Netflix is considering releasing a Carmen Sandiego series. Perhaps Netflix will do a series on genealogy?

5. When was the last time you went to a major genealogy conference?

Comment: OK, I realize that this question does not really follow the rules of my own game. But it is a serious question and not a silly one. With another session of #RootsTech 2018 coming online, I might note that for every major genealogy conference still being held, there are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of online webinars. It is not a trivial observation that some of my own webinars from the BYU Family History Library have more views than the entire attendance at a major genealogy conference. There are still a number of good reasons to go to a major genealogy conference but maybe no longer a need to go. I think the promoters of the larger conferences are struggling with that reality.

6. How does genealogy compete with cats and dogs?

Comment: This is another really serious question but rather obscure at the same time. We have been doing presentations at the BYU Family History Library and posting them on YouTube.com for some time now. We have garnered some respectable numbers of views compared to the rest of the online and video producing genealogical community but compared to many of the "popular" videos on YouTube, we are definitely small potatoes. An instructional video about how to fix a faucet can get more views in a few weeks than all of our 300+ BYU videos in three years. The reality is that genealogy is a pretty obscure subject. 

7. Can genealogy survive online family trees?

Comment: No comment.

8. Why do governments keep trying to protect the privacy of dead people?

Comments: One of the recurring topics in the genealogical community is the actions taken by various governments and governmental agencies to restrict access to genealogically important records. In some cases, this is an attempt to rewrite history, but mostly it is a ploy to get more revenue from selling us back our own family's information.

9. If I reach a brick wall, can't I just make up the rest?

Comment: At this point, I realized that my questions really were all serious. I guess I don't have much silliness in me today.

10. If a genealogical record falls in a forest, does it make a sound?

Comment: Here is the answer to the question from Wikipedia:

Albert Einstein is reported to have asked his fellow physicist and friend Niels Bohr, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics, whether he realistically believed that 'the moon does not exist if nobody is looking at it.' To this Bohr replied that however hard he (Einstein) may try, he would not be able to prove that it does, thus giving the entire riddle the status of a kind of an infallible conjecture—one that cannot be either proved or disproved.

That is enough for today.