A Better Way to Search for People?

Peter Wood wrote this week and offered a suggestion that I have not seen before. He described a better method of searching for people on RootsWeb, Ancestry.com, or even on Google and other search engines. Peter finds that adding one more letter onto the end of the name improves the number of correct "hits" and reduces the number of "false hits."

Peter writes:

Searching for people that cannot be found in the "usual" locations such as Roots or Ancestry?

Often users are not aware of, or know about the "Advanced Search" option in many search engines such as Google. The work-around for that is to use quotations in the search box, as an example "John doe". Of course, it is NOT case sensitive, so a poor typist like me does not have to worry about capitalization. What this does show, of course, are "hits" for every John Doe, whether living or dead, including articles on or about said person. 

What I found from bitter experience - and I took the "Graduate Course" at the "School of Hard Knocks" after scrolling through sometimes thousands of articles to look for a genealogy site - was to add a space and a "b" in the search box. Please notice there is NO period after the b, as in "John doe b". 

Now I get a much greater response of just genealogy sites where people have decided to post their genealogies on their own web sites. I have found that using just the "b" gave the best result as it is both an abbreviation for birth or born and also finds all three versions. I have found many interesting genealogy sites this way. 

The drawback, though - and it does warrant consideration - is that the search will not find John A. doe if only "john doe b" is used. My recommendation is to use as full a name as is known at first, such as "john Alexander doe b", then gradually reduce the middle name down to a more common format such as "john alex doe b", to "john a. doe b". The period is important to its basic format "john doe b" and as a last resort, "j. a. doe b". If you are still having difficulty, it also is wise where a middle name is known to reverse the first two names and repeat this process. If one is really desperate, use the very basic "doe b".

Thanks for the suggestions, Peter!

Comments

[Randy Seaver]

I tried Peter's suggestions and had some problems with using the letter "b" in conjunction with a name.

I blogged about my efforts, and my own experience, at http://randysmusings.blogspot.com/2007/02/more-effective-googling-for-grandpa.html.

This is one of the more popular topics now at genealogy conferences.

Cheers -- Randy

[JoAnn]

This has been a great site for me because I always received negative responces.I just found a dozen "new doors". Appreciate it a lot!

[Brenda]

I went to Randy's link and got an error message - no webpage.
Can this be forwarded to Randy! Thanks

[Alan Crawford]

Brenda, remove the trailing period from Randy's link. (That is, go to http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/02/a_better_way_to.html - without the period after "html".)

[Alan Crawford]

Oops, that is, go to http://randysmusings.blogspot.com/2007/02/more-effective-googling-for-grandpa.html - without the period after "html".

[Jim Castellan]

Please expand/clarify the three versions? ("I have found that using just the "b" gave the best result as it is both an abbreviation for birth or born and also finds all three versions.") Thanks.

[Tim]

Jim

The three versions are "b", "birth", and "born".

[Pam Hawley]

Try this one at Google too. Start by typing a plus sign, then type the person's name in quotation marks, then add a space, then type a plus sign and the word genealogy. It will look like this +"Nathan Potter" +genealogy I also suggest to try searching the person's name in reverse, like this "Potter, Nathan" This is how I found the burial site of my ggrandfather. He was a civil war veteran. The Dayton, Ohio cemetery where he is buried listed graves by last name first.