Google your Ancestors

by Ed Talbott

Over the years I have helped many people locate information on their ancestors using only the Google web site. Google is not a genealogy site, it is a search engine or a map to some of the most useful information that can be found on the Internet. Every day Google scans billions of web pages and has indexed these pages in its vast memory storage system for quick access by anyone in the world. Sometimes the sheer amount of data can be overwhelming for someone who is just starting to research their ancestry on the Internet. A search for the name Randolph Smith might return over 40 million web sites. Too many times I have witnessed people giving up on Google before they fully learn how powerful the search engine can be.

For example, assume all you know about your ancestor is that his name is James Justice, he was married to a woman named Elizabeth, had at least one son named Asheville, and he lived somewhere on Knox Creek around 1850. An initial search for James Justice on Google will give your around 328 million possible web sites to comb through (think of how many sites contain the word justice). At this point most people will look at the first 50 sites indexed and give up on the other 300 million+ sites. Somewhere in that 300 million web pages is probably the the key that will help unlock that doorway to their family’s past. Don’t give up. There are lots of tricks and search tips you can use to find the information you need.

First, try to narrow the search a bit. One of the most powerful tools for searching Google is the use of quotation marks. Quotation marks perform a search on the exact text string you type inside them. For example, a search for:

“James Justice”

now only yields 108,000 pages and not the 328 million the first search produced. Now we have narrowed the search by over 99.9%. If you check the first few sites and decide to need to narrow the search even further, you can also add (+) and (-) signs to your search to help you along.

Let’s try a search using the wife’s first name:

“John Justice” + Elizabeth

This time I find only 25,000 pages. I must understand though that I now am looking only at the pages that contain the text string “John Justice” and the word Elizabeth. If there is a land grant record on the Internet that does not mention Elizabeth’s name then I need to modify my search to make sure I have exhausted all the possibilities out there. This is still a lot of territory to cover so after searching a few pages of search hits I may try to narrow my search parameters even more.

At this point I will try about 50 different searches to make sure that I have covered most of the possible combinations of searches:

Search Term: Reasoning for Search:

“John Justice” general search

“John Justice” + Elizabeth name plus the first name of the wife

“John Justus” try different spellings for the last name

"Johnny Justus" different spelling of the first name

“J. Justice” on many court documents only the first initial may be used

“John Justice” + “Knox Creek” try the name plus any location

“John Justice” + “Buchanan Co.” try the name and county

Justice + Knox + Asheville pages that contain surname, location, son’s name (leave off the quotation marks for a broader search)

The list of possible searches is almost endless and you are never sure when that exact combination of search terms will reveal exactly what you need. It takes just a second to modify a search, so try as many as you can. Also as you progress and get more refined searches, you will probably run across information on your ancestor that may help you craft your searches. Let's say you run across some information that he served in the 10th Kentucky Cavalry during the Civil War. Then some possible searchs may be:

"John Justus" + CSA

"John Justice" + CSA

"John Justus" + "10th Kentucky"

"Justus" + "10th KY Cavalry"

"Justus" + "Diamond's 10th".........etc. etc.

Let’s say, for example, you find out while you are searching that Elizabeth’s maiden name is Davis. You might try a completely different line of searching using this new information:

Search Term: Reasoning for Search:

“Elizabeth Davis” + Knox Wife’s name plus part of the location

“Davis Family” + Justice looking for a family page on the Davis family

“Bette Davis” be sure to try all nicknames for Elizabeth

A marriage record might be located by:

Buchanan + marriage + Justice OR Justus + Davis

Be sure to incorporate any new information you uncover into other searches. For example, if you discover that Knox Creek runs through the town of Hurley then you might want try adding the term “Hurley” to some of the above searches. If you determine a land grant was awarded to John Justice on Guesses Fork then try adding the term “Guesses” to some of the searches.

Make sure you try any different spelling of a name or location. Google does not consider Smith and Smyth as the same. It will not find Virginia when you look for VA. It will find SMITH when you type smith as Google searches are not case sensitive.

Sometimes you will run across web pages that are very long and full of thousands of names (such as a long list of marriage records or if someone has downloaded an entire genealogy onto one web page). To search the page is easy depending on which browser you are using. In Chrome or Internet Explorer, simply hit Cntl-F and a search box opens at the top of the page. You can type in a last name and using the Find Next button (or down arrow), locate every instance of that name on the page.

If you know an approximate date for an event you can also search Google by date ranges. You might want to look for any reference to “John Justice” between 1845 and 1850 in the Knox Creek area. A search for this information might look like:

“John Justice” + Knox + 1845..1850

The use of the word OR (upper case only) can be very useful in searches. Lets say you are looking for information on the Ratliff family in the Garden Creek area from 1860 to 1870. A search for that information might look like:

Ratliff OR Ratcliff OR Ratliffe + Garden + 1860..1870

This search would pick up any instance of the most common spellings in the area at the time.

A search for an obituary might look like:

obit OR obituary OR obituaries + “John Justice”

Want to search over 100 years of archived newspapers on Google News? Try this site and utilize the search tricks we have already learned:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?hl=en

Here is some information on search terms you can use in Google:

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en

Let’s say you find out that there is a James Justice that lived in Buchanan County, Missouri and you keep turning up pages for this person and not the one in Buchanan County, Virginia. You could write your search in such a way to help eliminate the Missouri Justice family from your search results. This search might look like:

“John Justice” + “Buchanan Co.” –Missouri –MO

This search will show the pages that contain John Justice and Buchanan County but do not contain the words Missouri or the state abbreviation MO.

Sometimes you bookmark a great site but when you try to access it again the user has removed their data from the site. It may not be gone forever - try caching sites such as WayBackMachine to see if you can still access the data. Google also has some sophisticated caching tools but access is limited.

Now to tie all these tricks together in one search - try the Google Advanced Search Page.

Google can also serve as a calculator. Let’s say you find a record that lists your ancestor as 68 years old in 1903. Simply type 1903-68 into the Google search box to find an approximate birth date of 1835. Also if you are researching an old family deed and locate a reference to a length of 87 rods or poles, simply type 87 rods in feet to give you the converted length. Many of our local deeds use the term of pole for length. A pole is the same as a rod or 16.5 feet.

Google can now find some similar terms using the tilde (~) key. A search for ~genealogy might return results for similar searches such as family history, family tree, etc.

Sometimes your family history search can take you across the ocean and you might have to search pages that are in Spanish or German. Google can help here too. When a page is in a foreign language you have the option to translate it into English using Google.

This article only begins to cover the power of Google searches. To find out more check out the Google How To Site at:

https://support.google.com/

The Internet has truly revolutionized genealogy. More family research has been conducted in the past 15 years than has in the previous 1,000 years. Someone, somewhere, has the information you need to extend those family lines. It is up to you to learn how to find it.

Ed Talbott