Unk Hiram's
Beginning Genealogy Lessons
Lesson #13

Lesson 13: Search Engines
Search engines are one of the most commonly used sites on the Internet. But they are also one of the most underused for genealogy. They are a wonderful tool for finding sites that explain everything from the feeding instructions for spider monkeys to the Federalist Papers. But, for today let's just focus on genealogy.

There are several excellent search engines. I want to describe a few of them to you and how to use them.


1. http://www.dogpile.com -- Dogpile is one of the ones I use a lot. Just go to the URL and type in the surname you are looking for in the box marked "Fetch." Dogpile uses a program that accesses several different search engines at one time. If there are any sites out there with your surname on them, it will pull up the site. For example put "Hocutt" in the "fetch" blank and it will pull up over 8,000 separate pages. Now if you have all the time in the world you can go through each of these pages, one at a time. A better solution is type in "Hocutt, Genealogy," this will reduce your search to only sites that mention the surname and genealogy.
   
   
2. http://www.google.com -- My personal favorite search engine. I like google because it seems to pull up more refined choices than any of the others. When you type in your surname, again let's use "Hocutt" as an example. It pulls up 6,700 different sites. When you type in "Hocutt, Genealogy," this reduces your search to 976 sites which are all genealogical in nature.
   
   
3. http://www.yahoo.com -- An excellent search engine
   
   
4. http://www.ask.com -- A good search engine that I recommend for kids to use. With Ask.com you can type in a question and it will try to find a specific answer for you.
   
   
Search engines, like any other genealogical tool, are only as good as the information you plug into them. The more specific your request -- the more specific the information returned to you. Try a couple of the engines and try putting in different information. For example: "Hocutt, Genealogy, Alabama" or "Hoket, Genealogy, North Carolina". Vary the spelling on your surnames just as you would when doing census research. I want you to try a few very specific exercises on the search engines.


Exercise 1: Type in "your surname" and hit search
Exercise 2: Type in "your surname, genealogy" and hit search
Exercise 3: Type in "genealogy" and hit search
Exercise 4: Type in "genealogy, your state" and hit search


These exercises will give you a feel for what the search engines can find for you. One thing I want to caution you on. Any information found on the Internet needs to be verified. Remember the facts are only as good as your source.



Q & A Section:

1. Search Engines can only be used for genealogy?
   
   1. True
      
   2. False
      
   3. True if you are in Maine
      
   
   
2. All search engines are the same and will find the same information
   
   1. True
      
   2. False
      
   3. Strawberry Ice Cream
      
   
   
3. Everything a search engine finds for you will be a primary source.
   
   1. True
      
   2. False, all information has to be verified
      
   3. Only if the site is in Maine
      

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