Mais conteúdo relacionado Semelhante a Smart Internet Searching for Genealogists (20) Mais de GenealogyMedia.com (13) Smart Internet Searching for Genealogists2. ONE MUST START WITH A DISCUSSION OF ACCESS … 1 – Access: Search and Navigation 3. The Librarian’s Definition © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 3 “The availability of or permission to use records.” – Archives & Records Management Handbook, Oregon State U., http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/archives/handbook/definitions/ “… the purpose of librarianship – enabling people to identify, locate, and use the information that will meet their … needs.” – The Information Professional’s Glossary, SIRLS, Arizona State U., http://www.sir.arizona.edu/resources/glossary.html 5. As of 2005, there were more than 11.5 billion web pages (http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~asignori/web-size/). So how do you access the genealogical information you’re looking for? 6. Web Access © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 5 Navigation – That is, clicking through a pre-defined path in a website to find the information you need. A good navigation path is like a searchlight in fog. Search – Search is especially helpful: If you do not even know what website to use, or If you need to find information on a website and do not know how to navigate to the information. 8. Database search – Words are searched against particular fields in a database, such as “surname” or “state” (Ancestry, SteveMorse.org, NewspaperArchive, Footnote) It’s important to keep in mind which kind of search you’re performing. A full-text search will not know a surname from any other collection of characters. 9. Design for Access © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 7 A good web designer will focus on improving customer success through both paths (search and navigation) to the information 18. More Advanced Searches © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 12 Exclude WordFind pages that don’t include a particular word. Google: –SearchTerm Exclude PhraseFind pages that don’t include a particular phrase. Google: -“Search Phrase” Exclude Specific Site Find pages, but exclude a specific site.Google: -site:www.sitename.com Soundex – Available on many genealogy websites, and not only for census records. 19. Methodologies © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 13 Look for advanced search pages Read search guidelines on the site Experiment If you don’t find what you’re looking for, map out strategies for more specific searches In other words, plan your more complex Internet searches the way you’d plan a trip to a major repository 21. Using Google to its Potential © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 15 3 – A Sample Search 22. Finding Jane Graham © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 16 Facts: Jane Graham, was born in 1811 and died unmarried in 1854. She lived her life in Monroe County, VA (now WV). Q: How do I search for her on Google? A: By increasing the specificity of my search. 28. Site-specific search on Google, and searches at Newspaperarchive.com, footnote © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 22 4 – Additional Search Examples 38. Stephen P. Morse’s One-Step Web Pages © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 32 No discussion of internet search for genealogists would be complete without a discussion of Stephen Morse’s One-Step Web Pages at: http://www.stevemorse.org/ Morse uses “deep linking” to skip past multiple search pages and get directly to the content. One great example is that the One-Step site allows you to search Ancestry (if you have an account) with surnames of fewer than 3 letters. It does this by sending 26 searches for each letter you don’t specify. 39. The Morse Controversy © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 33 Some web managers have either blocked the One-Step pages or merely protested their side-effects. The pages can limit a site’s ad revenue, as people skip pages with ads on their way to the information they seek. The pages can cause a lot of traffic to come to a website, either by making it easy to submit what are essentially multiple requests with one click, or by providing better advertising than some smaller sites have received. I’ll have more about this site in an answer to a question submitted. 40. Resolution © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 34 The One-Step pages are a benefit to researchers Morse has been able to work out most disputes, except with some larger companies. (And some sites have used his methods to improve their search capabilities.) 44. A Caveat About “Page Date” Searches on Google © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 39 Stephen Morse points out that Google is really tracking when they indexed a page, not when the page was last modified. Probably a better search for the age of a web page is Stephen Morse’s : http://stevemorse.org/google/googledate.html 45. Web Translation © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 40 Q: Are there any good web sites to help translate web pages written in another language? There are good sites in German but I can’t find a source to help me translate what they are saying. A: There are several, though all are limited since real translation requires a human touch. http://www.google.com/translate_t http://babelfish.altavista.com/ http://translation2.paralink.com/ 46. Google Appliance © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 41 Q: Godfrey Memorial Library has “Godfrey Search” on its Web site to search its databases. “Godfrey Search” is powered by an “appliance” provided by Google. What is an appliance and how does it differ from a general Google search? A: The Google Search appliance is a server computer that indexes content on a specific site. Direct Google searches are often better, when you have the option of either, but Google cannot crawl the Godfrey Library site because it’s subscription based. 49. Rights and permissions issues By the way, in case anyone could use an overview of the new FamilySearch, Wikipedia’s article provides a brief take on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FamilySearch#New_FamilySearch 52. Keeping Info © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 45 Q: How do you keep this info? I spent a long time (and lots of printer cartridges) copying things only to discover later it was not the relative in my Family Tree at all. Is there a good Internet organizational tool? A: There are a number of strategies. One thing I do up front is check the following: Is the information sourced? Does the information really connect to mine? If the information does not pass both tests, I may keep the link at del.icio.us (a link saving and sharing site) for later evaluation. Another strategy is to use a family tree program, such as TMG, that allows you to store contradictory pieces of information. 56. Other Search / Navigation Sites of Note Google Book Search – http://books.google.com/ Google Scholar – http://scholar.google.com/ Google Patent Search – http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en Linkpendium – http://www.linkpendium.com/ Internet Archive (Way Back Machine) – http://www.archive.org/web/web.php WorldCat – http://www.worldcat.org/ Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/ esp. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_carolina © 2008 GenealogyMedia.com 51