The document is a presentation on advanced search techniques for genealogy research. It discusses how search engines work, different types of searches including word, phrase, Boolean, and proximity searches. It provides examples of searching genealogy databases and sites like Mocavo. It also gives tips on refining searches and provides an example of effectively searching for "Jane Graham" born in 1811 in Monroe County, West Virginia.

1. Beyond Google:
Advanced Search
NGS FAMILY HISTORY CONFERENCE
Charleston, South Carolina, 2011
JORDAN JONES
E-mail: jordan@genealogymedia.com
Web: genealogymedia.com
Wednesday, January 2, 13

2. National Genealogical Society
Since 1903, the premier national society
for everyone from the beginner to the
most advanced family historian. Join now!
Attend our Annual Conference:
8-11 May 2013, Las Vegas, NV
7-10 May 2014, Richmond, VA
See www.ngsgenealogy.org for details.
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3. Wednesday, January 2, 13

4. Roadmap
1. Access: Search and Navigation
2. How Search Engines Work
3. Kinds of Searches
4. Search Methodologies
5. A Search Example: Jane Graham
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5. 1 – Access: Search and
Navigation
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6. The Librarian’s Definition
Access is “The availability of or permission
to use records.”
– Archives & Records Management
Handbook, Oregon State U., http://
osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/archives/
handbook/definitions/
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7. The Techie’s Definition
For web sites, access similarly describes the
permission and ability for people to
“identify, locate, and use information.”
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8. The Data Problem
In July 2008, Google’s search bots had
reached 1 trillion unique URLs
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/
we-knew-web-was-big.html).
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9. The Data Problem
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10. Web Access
Navigation - Clicking through a pre-
defined path in a website to find the
information you need.
Search - Only helpful if you do not know
how to navigate to the information.
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11. Design for Access
A good web designer will focus on
improving customer access to information
through both paths (search and
navigation).
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12. 2 – How Search Engines
Work
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13. How Search Engines Work
1. “Web Spiders” 2.Caching
The search engine Some web search
has computer applications (such
programs “crawl” as Google) store
through all the links (cache) all the
on the web pages they crawl
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14. How Search Engines Work
3. Indexing 4.Ranking - Links are
The search engine ranked in terms of
creates and relevance,
manages an index popularity,
of all the words authoritativeness
found on the pages and other criteria:
crawled The Secret Sauce.
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15. The Search Cycle
Crawling Caching
Ranking Indexing
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16. 3 – Kinds of Searches
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17. Word (implicit AND)
If you list two words, such as Jane Graham,
find pages that include “Jane” and
“Graham”.
Example: Jane Graham
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18. Word (Overrides)
All 3 major search engines include plurals and
ignore common words.
Google includes synonyms.
Use a plus sign (+) to:
Ignore plurals and synonyms on Google
Include common words
Example: Jane Graham +genealogy
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19. Phrase & Boolean OR
Phrase searches are often used in
conjunction with a Boolean OR.
Examples:
“Jane Graham”
“Jane Graham” OR “Graham Jane”
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20. Proximity Searches
Proximity or wildcard searches can be used
to find pages where words are near one
another.
Example (Google):
Jane * Graham OR Graham * Jane
Where * = one or two words.
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21. Special Search Pages
Yahoo Shortcuts — help.yahoo.com/l/us/
yahoo/search/basics/
Google Search Features —
www.google.com/intl/en/help/features.html
Bing Advanced Search Keywords —
onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-us/bing/
ff808421.aspx
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22. Some Shortcuts
define [keyword] (all 3)
Example: define tithables
facts [keyword] (Yahoo) — encyclopedia
entries, along with web results
Example: facts south carolina
convert [unit] to [unit] (all 3)
Example: convert 2 stones to pounds
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23. Location Shortcuts
Area Code (all 3)
Example: Charleston, SC area code or 843
Zip Code (all 3)
Example: Charleston, SC zip code
Local (all 3)
Example: cemetery 29401 or cemetery
Charleston, SC
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24. Advanced Searches
Synonym or Like (Google)
Limit results to pages including synonyms
of your search term or phrase.
Example: “Jane Graham” OR “Graham
Jane” ~genealogy
Wildcards (all 3)— The use of wildcards
varies, but the characters (*_?) can replace
words or characters
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25. Site Specific
Limit to a Site (all 3)
Limit results to pages from a particular site.
Example: “Jane Graham” site:usgenweb.org
Site Class-Specific (all 3)
Example: “Jane Graham” site:.org
Exclude a Site (all 3)
Example: “Jane Graham” -site:usgenweb.org
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26. Exclusion
Exclude a Word — Limit results by
excluding pages with a particular word.
Exclude a Phrase — Limit results by
excluding pages with a particular phrase.
Examples (Google):
“Jane Graham” -murder or
“Jane Graham” - “Murrah Federal Building”
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27. Numerical Range
On Google, numerical ranges can be
searched by putting two periods between
numbers.
This can be used to search a range of
dates.
Example: “Jane Graham” 1811..1854
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28. Read the Search Tips
Read the Tips
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29. 4 – Search Methodology
Plan Your Path to
Achieve Predictable Results
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30. Review Site Guidelines
Read the advanced search tips:
Yahoo: help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/
search/
Google: www.google.com/support/
websearch/
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31. Learn the Site
Read the advanced search tips:
Yahoo: search.yahoo.com/web/advanced
Google: www.google.com/advanced_search
Bing: Click “Advanced” after running a search
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32. Google Advanced Search
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33. Google Advanced
Search Additional Items
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34. Bing Advanced Search
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35. Yahoo Advanced Search
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36. Mocavo
A new genealogy-specific search website site
launched on March 16, 2011: www.mocavo.com
Mocavo Search Tips: en.wordpress.com/
tag/mocavo-search-tips/
Capitalization does not matter
Names inside quotation marks: “Jane
Graham”
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37. Mocavo
Mocavo understands middle names, middle
initials, and that given names and surnames
can be reversed.
“Jane Graham” searches for “Graham
Jane” “Jane N. Graham” and “Graham,
Jane Nancy”
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38. Mocavo
Mocavo supports both OR [ | ] and NOT
[−]
Searches major public genealogy sites, and
is starting to search blogs
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39. Google Alerts
You can have Google search in the
background and send results on a regular
basis:
www.google.com/alerts/
Search News, Blogs, Realtime, Video,
Discussions, or Everything
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40. Google Alerts
Get results when Google finds them (“as-it-
happens”), daily or weekly
Select “All” or “Only the best” results
Choose to receive your results
in your e-mail, or
via an RSS feed
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41. Google Alerts
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42. 5 – A Search Example:
Jane Graham
Using a Search engine to its Potential
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43. Finding Jane Graham
Facts: Jane Graham, was born in 1811 and died
unmarried in 1854. She lived her life in Monroe
County, VA (now WV).
Q: How do I find her?
A: By adjusting the specificity of the search.
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44. Jane Graham (30 million)
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45. “Jane Graham” (384K)
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46. “Jane Graham” “Monroe
County” (2,960)
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47. “Jane Graham” “Monroe
County” 1854 (958)
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48. “Jane Graham” “Monroe
County” 1811..1854 (668)
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49. More Search Tools
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50. Within the Past Year (160)
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51. Summary
By creating a more specific search, we
narrowed the results from nearly 30 million
to 160, or by a factor of 187,000!
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52. A Caveat About Page
Date Searches
Stephen Morse points out that Google is
really tracking when they indexed a page,
not when the page was last modified.
Probably a better search for the age of a
web page is Stephen Morse’s:
stevemorse.org/google/googledate.html
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53. A Site-Specific Search
Say I want search the surname “Gregg” on the
US GenNet site for Nance County, NE
I issue the search:
Gregg site:www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/
county/nance/
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54. Steve Morse’s One-Step
No discussion of Internet search for
genealogists would be complete without a
discussion of Stephen Morse’s One-Step Web
Pages at:
www.stevemorse.org
Morse uses “deep linking” to get directly to
the content.
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55. A Morse Example
The One-Step site allows you to search
Ancestry (if you have an account) with
surnames of fewer than 3 letters.
It does this by sending 26 searches for each
letter you don’t specify.
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56. Other Search Sites
Dogpile – www.dogpile.com Internet Archive (Way Back
Google Book Search – Machine) –
books.google.com/ www.archive.org/web/
web.php
Google Scholar –
scholar.google.com/ Live Roots –
www.liveroots.com/
Google Patent Search –
www.google.com/patents? WorldCat –
hl=en www.worldcat.org/
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57. Contact
J o rd a n J o n e s
j o rd a n @ g e n e a l o g y m e d i a . c o m
Th e s e s l i d e s , a n d t h e h a n d o u t , a re a v a i l a b l e a t :
http://www.genealogymedia.com/talks/
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58. Contact
jordan@genealogymedia.com
These slides will be posted at
www.genealogymedia.com/talks/
Wednesday, January 2, 13