Your Family Tree

Google Your Family Tree

Ann Lamb, Family History Expo, Nov 6, 2010

The book:

“Google Your Family Tree : Unlock the Hidden Power of Google”

 By Daniel M. Lynch — 1st Edition — Provo, UT : FamilyLink.com, Inc.

Website: www.googleyourfamilytree.com

SOME OF THE TOPICS COVERED:

1. Use Basic and Advanced search operators to filter results

2. Find published information about your family history using dozens of powerful techniques

3. Discover visuals to help illustrate your family story using Google Images and Video

4. Explore your ancestral homelands – from countryside to neighborhood – with Google Maps and Google Earth

5. Conduct research in historical newspapers using Google News Archive

6. Set up automated searches using Google Alerts

7. Use Language Tools to find and translate foreign content

8. Search within a site

9. Make the most of the top free websites for genealogy

10. Using "and more" (lots of useful free programs)

1 1. Use Basic and Advanced search operators to filter results

 Quotation marks: “edward lynch”  Asterisk for Wildcard: * “edward * lynch”  Minus sign –: waterbury –vermont  Similar words, tilde ~ : ~genealogy  OR - “edward lynch” OR “lynch, edward” http://www.googleyourfamilytree.com/genealogy_powersearch.php

2. Find published information about your family history using dozens of powerful techniques

 Select “More”  then “Books”  Search subject, title, author  Also includes other published material

Google Books: (or www.books.google.com )  Goal: to digitize 15 million books  Goal: to make the content easily available  Enter search term: “…………”  Returns: List view Limited preview and full view Cover view Full view only All books Public domain only

Sidebar: Other places to find digitized books

 The Gutenberg Project - www.gutenberg.org  FamilySearch.org/Search/Historical Books: www.lib.byu.edu/fhc/index.php  Public Library ebooks: http://www.kcls.org  Public Library: http://www.kcls.org  “Items in the eCollection”  Databases/ Heritage Quest /history & genealogy books  Ebooks http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/ft/EBooks.asp

2 3. Discover visuals to help illustrate your family story using Google Images and Video

 http://www.googleyourfamilytree.com/genealogy_powersearch_image s.php

 Gives number of results, links to primary keyword  Also image sizes, thumbnail & description  Uses same commands & syntax as regular search

4. Explore your ancestral homelands– from countryside to neighborhood – with Google Maps and Google Earth

 Maps.google http:// www.maps.google.com  Download Google Earth (Google/more/and more - Google Earth) http://www.googleyourfamilytree.com/genealogy_powersearch_maps.php

5. Conduct research in historical newspapers using Google News Archive

 Google.com Left side: select Archive  Select time period  Select News  Search

6. Set up automated searches using Google Alerts  www.google.com ..more…even more...Alerts  Set up a well-defined query  Register it with Alerts  Get email updates on topics of your choice

7. Use Language Tools to find and translate foreign content  www.google.com > Language Tools  1. Search across foreign languages (query in your language, find pages in another, results translated  2. Translate your text input

3  3. Translate web page content  4. Use Google in nearly 120 languages  5. Access localized versions of Google  6. Translate words via the Google Toolbar

8. Search within a site, in blogs and gedcoms  Helps if site does not have a search function of its own  Also search blogs (www.google.com / more /and more/ Blog Search)  Practice blog search for genealogy at http://www.googleyourfamilytree.com/genealogy_blogs earch.php Example: site: eogn.com “ new haven county ”  And search Gedcoms: Example: “ patrick lynch ” connecticut filetype:ged

9. Make the most of the top free websites for genealogy  Eastman ’s Online Genealogy Newsletter www.eogn.com  Ellis Island Passenger Arrival Records www.ellisisland.org  Family Search www.familysearch.org  Immigrant ships Transcribers Guild http://www.immigrantships.net

More top free websites:  One Step Tools by Stephen Morse www.stevemorse.org  Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness www.raogk.org  Wayback Machine (web archives) www.archive.org  Wikipedia www.wikipedia.org  US Genweb www.usgenweb.org  World Genweb www.worldgenweb.org

10. Google’s “Even more”

And your favorite…. ? ______