Google: Your Internet Swiss Army Knife

 

Even if you've never used a Swiss Army Knife, I'd bet that some in your family have one and use it regularly. That little pocket tool is just that useful.

That's why some compare Google to your Internet Swiss Army Knife. Certainly there is not just one all-purpose tool (think kitchen gadgets and pans) but Google for genealogy comes close to fitting that definition. 

How do I use Google? (How do YOU use Google?)

Google for Genealogy

 

Google should be one of the most-used tools in your genealogy tool box. The "wag" is that you can ask Google for information on a zillion subjects. (No, Google will NOT be able to tell you where great-grandma was buried.)

Family Tree Magazine offered this 8-page Cheat Sheet as an insert in their magazine a while back. My opinion? It's worth the $9.99 but ONLY IF you use it! 😐

Here are the front page Google Search Tips:

• Save time; search properly
• Disregard punctuation
• Disregard capitalization
• Don't stress spelling
• Put the most important search term first
• Use the Advanced feature
• Set up Google alerts/automated searches
• Use Google Chrome

Did you know Google offers (for free):

• Google Books, 40 billion books
• Google Translate
• Google Maps
• Google Earth
• Google Drive
• MORE!

There are dozens of tutorials on YouTube (also part of the Google family) to teach you!

Genealogical research is more than just picking the "low-hanging fruit" and sitting back. Genealogical research is learning how to reach that "higher" fruit!  Google can help, I guarantee. 😀

Bitesize Bits & Pieces

 

Saw a school bus last week bringing munchkins to the MAC. The bus was from Benge, Washington, and I had no clue where that was. (Do you?) Benge is a bitty farming town in Adams County named for Frank H. Benge who donated land for the town in 1907. He was the first representative from Adams County to the Washington State Legislature in 1904.

How about Larene, WA? Or Littlerock, WA? Our ancestors did not always live in places we can easily find on the maps.

EWGS President, Lynda Keenan, shared some Google tips with us at the April REFOCUS meeting. None of us present realized that Google offers 35 helps and all for free! Do check it out. 

She also shared a DNA spotlight:  You cannot pass on down what you did not get.

We might fuss about our cold winters here in the Spokane area but "it ain't nuttin' like it used to be." A bit in the Spokesman back in March 1921 reported that "more than 1,000,000 feet of logs enroute from pack River near Hope to the Beardmore mill in Priest River are frozen fast in the Pend Oreille River at LaClede with little prospects of moving them until warmer weather. The river at LaClede is frozen over with about three inches of ice and it is still freezing."  With no logs, the mill had to shut down..... many ancestors were out of work that cold, cold winter.

Tidbit from Donna's personal experience. Wanting to access a book written in 2013, The Chinese in Washington State, I scoured books stores both online and in person. Even Amazon was no help. As a last resort, I turned to our Spokane Public Library catalog and, as you quickly guessed, they do have a copy. DUH on me for sure. 

What You Missed: The June 2008 Computer Class

Did you know that there are thousands of genealogy books, county histories, and biographies that can help you in your research which are available online, either in transcribed or digital form? Many of these may be historical or genealogical information about your direct ancestors or relatives in your family tree. You may find local or social histories about the areas or time period in which your ancestors lived which can help you understand their lives better. There may even be business or government records that provide snippets of personal information about a relative. All these things could help you break down a brick wall or add a generation or two to your ahnentafel!

How can you access these online books? If you attended Juanita Linton McBride's presentation on Digitized Book Sites on June 21st, you would know! If you would like a copy of Juanita's syllabus, please contact me at kidmiffatgmaildotcom, substituting the appropriate symbols for the green words.

By the way, one of my favorite digital book sites is Google Book Search:

Genea-Google-ology

Google has wonderful bells and whistles that are of immense value to us "geneahistorians." I like to call them Genea-Google-ology Tools! Have you tried Google Alerts? You can be alerted with a message sent to your e-mail inbox every time your surname of interest (or other keyword or phrase) shows up on the Internet!

For instance, every time any of the words midkiff, sweers, tuinstra, valk, or westaby show up online, I get a handy-dandy e-mail letting me know, along with a link to that site. The above surnames are some of the more unusual ones in my husband's and my ancestries. You can also choose a phrase (put your search terms within quotation marks) or a combination of words (use the plus [+] key). I have genealogy+michigan as another alert, which searches for both words (not necessarily together) on a website or blog. You can control where your results come from, too: news, blogs, web, groups, or comprehensive (all).

You can also tweak your alerts a bit, by narrowing your results using the minus ( - ) key. Using only tuinstra as a search term, I was getting links to dozens of articles written by well-known journalist Fons Tuinstra, stationed in China. I changed my alert to tuinstra -fons to get better hits. I was also getting a lot of hits for a Joost Valk that did not apply to my genealogy, so again, I made a change to valk -joost. I still get some unconnected hits, but they have decreased in volume considerably.

"So how do I set up Google Alerts for myself?" you may be asking. Go here to begin. As far as I can tell, you do not need a Google account or Gmail address to set up an alert. The process is fairly simple, and once you sign up, you should start receiving alerts soon. As a matter of fact, you can control how frequently you receive these alerts, too: once a day, as it happens, or once a week. And you can edit your alerts at any time!

(P.S. Thanks to Ruby for telling me about this, many months ago!)