Search Engines are Not All Created Equal...

When searching for one's ancestors there are many places to begin searching including the Internet. Long before online research became what it is today there were bullentin and message boards which allowed for surname searches in specified locations and the follow-up contacts through email.

Today, there are books being written on how to use search engines to aid in this type of research and so it may seem strange to suggest using multiple search engines. Recently, a new genealogical search engine was introduced called Mocavo which searches thousands of genealogical web sites with the focus on the words you have entered into the search. This fact alone shows how using multiple ways to search can be a benefit to the searcher.

Understanding how each search engine works can help to determine the reasoning behind using other search engines to conduct a more complete search for one's ancestors. Beginning with the most used search engine, Google, one has various publications to help with this type of research along with one's own curiosity of entering in various search terms to do ancestral research.

The familiar colorful logo came onto the search engine scene in 1998 according to their write up in Wikipedia. As with most companies, their history is quite fascinating and worth a few minutes to review it. You will discover that their analytical methods of search results includes relationships between websites.

There are a couple of publications currently available to aid genealogists as they use Google for research:

1) Google Your Family Tree: Unlocking the Hidden Power of Google by Daniel M. Lynch
2) Crash Course in Genealogy by David R. Dowell *

*There are many references within this book on using Google as an ancestral search engine. There are also many articles, blogs and other media created that review this search engines ability to aid ancestral research.

Some of the other search engines to consider when doing research because of the way their search engines perfom searches are:

• Yahoo.com
• Dogpile.com (search aggregator)
• Ask.com
• MSN
• Bing

I am sure there are others that are worth investigating and hopefully some will share them in the comments section.

Tomorrow we will discuss the new 'all in one' genealogical search engine Mocavo!

Comments and Suggestions are always welcomed!

Building Bridges for All Generations!

Claire (*)

Timeless Genealogies

We're Your Family is "No. 1"

Blogs

http://timelessgen.blogspot.com

http://gen-reflections.blogspot.com

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/TimelessGenealogies

https://www.facebook.com/TimelessGenealogies

Twitter @TimelessGen

(c) 2005-2013, Timeless Genealogies, All Rights Reserved

     claire@timelessgen.com