Ancestry Magazine

Searching the vast resources of the Internet for genealogical information is made easier with a few Boolean tips.

The Internet is an incredible resource for finding information; but it’s particularly effective for family history research. When you have a question, the Internet can very often answer it for you. But to find the answer most easily, go first to a search engine.

The Basics of Search Engines
If you can think of the Internet as a giant library, think of search engines as the card catalog of the Internet. For example, when you walk into a library and want to find a book on a particular subject or title, you’ll first go to the card catalog. The same is true of the Internet; when you want to find a Web page on a particular subject, you’ll go first to a search engine. There are several search engines available for you to use, and it is well worth your time to become familiar with them.

Regardless of how you access the Internet, when you’re online, there is an address bar at the top of the screen that shows the Web address that you’re currently viewing. For example, if you’re at the official Web page for the White House, the address bar shows http://www.whitehouse.gov. Web addresses can be confusing and hard to remember, but once you learn to use search engines, you won’t have to remember any of those addresses anymore.

For family history research, one of the best search engines is a Web site called AltaVista. In the blank line under the words “Search for” you can type in the names and topics that you’re interested in.

The basic idea is that you type in the words that best describe what you’re looking for. Type as many words as you feel appropriate; don’t feel limited to one or two. If, for example, you are looking for information on a man named John J. Schmidt, type in his full name. Once you click the Search button, AltaVista will search the Internet for all the Web pages it can find containing that name somewhere within the page. But more often than not, you will have more pages than you have time to search. There are some easy ways to narrow down your search results, known as Boolean searching.

Keep in mind that Boolean techniques are not limited to AltaVista, but are us ed in some form or other on virtually all search engines, and even on other Web pages such as eBay and Amazon.

Boolean Search Tips
AltaVista uses a method called Boolean to search the entire Internet. It is very simple to learn. The following shortcuts will help narrow your search to locate what you’re really after.

1. The most important tip is using the Phrase Search, or a phrase using quotes. This is a way to group words together; you’re actually searching for the phrase rather than individual words. In the original search for John J. Schmidt, AltaVista searched the Internet for every Web page that had the word Schmidt or the word John. Obviously, that’s neither practical nor what you wanted. To look for John J. Schmidt, you would use the phrase search “John J. Schmidt.” In most cases, putting your phrase in quotes will dramatically improve your success.

2. Two other important shortcuts are the requirement symbol (+) and the eliminator (—) symbol. Use these to supplement your original search. Let’s say you did a search for John J. Schmidt and found out that there’s a famous football player by that name, and most of your results concern that football player, whom you’re not interested in. Using the eliminator symbol, you can refine your search: John J. Schmidt—football.

This means that AltaVista will search for all pages that contain the phrase “John J. Schmidt,” but if the word “football” is included on a Web page, that site will not be included in your results list.

Additionally, let’s say you know that your John J. Schmidt once lived in Boston. You might want to ensure that Boston is mentioned on any page you see with his name. Then you would do a search that like this:

“John J. Schmidt”+Boston—football

Note that there is no space between the + or — symbols and the words they go with; but you should i nclude spaces within a phrase search.

3. Finally, there is a tool that allows you to perform a search on just the first few letters of a name. This tool is referred to as a wildcard; it uses the asterisk symbol (*). This function is especially important in family history research because it allows you to find words when you’re not sure of the exact spelling, as is often the case with family names.

Let’s say that you’re searching for your distant grandparents, Jehu Cox and his wife Sara, but you aren’t exactly sure how Sara’s name is spelled. Does it have an “h” on the end? You could do a wildcard search that would look like this: “Jehu Cox”+Sara*

AltaVista vs Yahoo!
So far, we have discussed basic techniques for searching AltaVista. For family history research AltaVista is an excellent search engine because it is designed for very specific searches. Keep in mind, though, that it searches the same database as the better-known search engine Yahoo! .

For day-to-day use, Yahoo! is an excellent tool for general searches on the Internet. When you use Yahoo! your search will usually be pointed to a more general category and you’ll have access to that information. For example, if you use Yahoo to find information on lasagna recipes, Yahoo! might first try to find a link to its own small list of recommended pages of the best Web pages with lasagna recipes. Depending on how broad the topic is that you are searching, this condensed list could range anywhere from one to a thousand pages; and for day-to-day use, you may find this useful. But as your searches become more and more specific, you will find this feature less useful, and you will appreciate the directness of AltaVista.

Regardless of which search engine you use, keep in mind that when you type in multiple words for Yahoo!, it will search only for Web pages that have all of the individual words you have typed in, whereas AltaVista will search for pages with any of the individual words you’ve typed in.

These few techniques are just the beginning, but they will dramatically improve your success and efficiency when you are searching for online information.

For a Web page that summarizes Search Tool databases, Boolean symbols, and search options, see the InfoPeople Project Web page. This Web site also has a page of selected Best Search Tools that allows multiple searches of a variety of databases at one time. Hold on to your hat as you wait for the engines to search millions of pages. You’ll be overwhelmed in just a few seconds!

Derek Agard, the software training manager for Gateway Computers, has a masters degree in political science. Roseann Reinemuth Hogan, Ph. D., has been researching her family history since 1978. Her special interests include oral histories and social history.