6 Google Search Tips For Genealogy That Will Save You Hours Of Time
*This post may have affiliate links, which means I may receive commissions if you choose to purchase through links I provide (at no extra cost to you). All opinions remain my own.
Google is often the go-to resource whenever we have a question about anything we can possibly think of. It can feel like we have the entire universe of information at our fingertips.
Google is so powerful it can feel like you only need to type in a couple of words into that search bar and get your questions answered!
And it’s no different with genealogy research. I bet you’ve Googled your family more than once.
But I also bet you’ve had mixed results when searching for your ancestors.
In this article, I’ll go over how to use Google for genealogy in more effective ways than typing in random searches.
Because there’s so much information online, googling your ancestors can bring you a lot of results, but not necessarily the ones you need.
Using a variety of online search techniques will deliver higher quality results. And higher quality results make it easier for you to find that needle in the haystack (AKA that ancestor you desperately want to learn more about).
Google is an important tool but there are ways to make your searches more successful, saving you time and frustration. By tweaking your search strategy, you'll increase the chances of finding a website that actually helps you – without waiting through 200 pages of search results.
Because let’s face it, most of us never get past the first couple of pages of results, so we want the best, most relevant sites to come up first.
Related posts:
11 Smart Strategies For Searching For Ancestors Who Changed Their Name
How and Why to Research Your Collateral Ancestors
6 Common Genealogy Mistakes And How To Avoid Them
11 of the Best Websites for Free Ship Passenger Lists
Solve Your Genealogy Brick Wall: 10 Ways To Widen Your Research Net
6 tips for how to use Google for genealogy research
How do you find your ancestors on Google?
Using Google follows the basic steps of any other genealogy research, from making a plan to analyzing your results.
But like other research skills, there are ways to make the process even more useful and productive.
1) Set your research goal. As always, the first thing is to decide exactly what you are looking for. Is it a person, place, or thing (like a book or an image)?
2) List what makes your search unique. Think about what details about your search you can add to refine the results and separate your goal from other similar search terms. This is very important when looking for people with more common names, as you're likely to get many irrelevant results for them.
Some ideas for this are:
Time and place. When and where did the person live or what area are you looking for and for what time period?
Did the person have an unusual first, middle, or last name?
Who was their spouse?
What did they do for work?
What type of thing are you looking for? Church records? Photos?
Also, think about what words are more likely to be on the type of website you’re looking for.
For example, if you’re looking for old California voter lists, “great register” would be a better search term than “voter list” or “voter registration”. Both of those terms pull up websites about how to register to vote today in California.
Using a timeline can help you quickly identify the unique traits of your ancestor.
3) Use search operators with the terms you came up with to get more exact results. While there are many Google search operators, some of the ones that are most useful for genealogy are:
Quotation marks. Put a phrase inside quotes to find exact matches. For example, “Philippe Couture”.
AND. Using this will give you results with only both words or phrases included. For example, “Philippe Couture” AND “Greenfield, MA”.
OR. This will give you pages with either term to combine searches. This is helpful for searching name variations, like “Marie Duteau dit Vilandre” OR “Marie Vilandre”. Another example would be “Philippe Couture” OR “Couture, Philippe”.
-. The minus sign will exclude words. For example, I have an ancestor named Pierre Perusse, who lived in New Hampshire. There was another Pierre Perusse who lived in Manchester, New Hampshire. A search I could run for him would be “Pierre Perusse” “New Hampshire” –Manchester.
*. The asterisk is like a wildcard. Use it to substitute words or letters, like to replace middle or maiden names when you’re not sure how they were recorded somewhere. For example, Emma * Couture for Emma Perusse Couture or Emma Perus*.
AROUND. This is a more advanced operator that finds results where two different terms are within a specific number of words to each other. The search string is like: term 1 AROUND # term 2. This can be helpful for looking for combinations of people and places. One such example is “Pierre Perusse” AROUND 5 “David Perusse”, so only sites that mention both people will come up. You can also use it for searches like a surname in an area, such as Perusse AROUND 4 “Barton, Vermont”.
( .. ). This is the number range operator, which gives you results that have numbers in a specific range. This can be useful for searching for someone within a certain timeframe. One such example is Philippe Couture 1882..1932.
related:. Know of a great genealogy website? Use this operator to find similar sites that may also be helpful. When you use this, don’t put a space between the “related:” and the website. For example, related:wikitree.com.
The OR, AND, and AROUND search operators are case sensitive, so be sure to capitalize them.
4) Look at your results. Did you get what you expected to find? Were the results related or unrelated to your research goal?
5) Refine your search. How can you improve your search query? Can you add operators like AND or the wildcard search? Can you remove operators and simplify the search?
Test different variations of your searches until you find the ones that give you the best results.
6) Set alerts. Once you’ve finalized a search that you know you’ll want to use again in the future, you can set a Google Alert for it. I have alerts set up for simple name searches for ancestors with less common names, like Pierre Perusse, as well as for specific people and places.
Go to Google Alerts and enter the search string. Click on Show Options and set how often you’d like to get the alerts, sources (like only videos), etc.
Then you’ll automatically get results sent to your email so you can set it and forget it.
Related posts:
How to Use the Online Archive of California in Your Genealogy Research
How To Use Online Family Trees The Right Way
Solve Your Genealogy Brick Wall: How To Research A Last Name In An Area
Final thoughts
Google is a very powerful tool that most of us use daily. But when searching for our ancestors, there are ways to improve the searches to get better results. Search operators are key to refining your queries so you can search more efficiently and find answers sooner.