Some point to remember

Googel is not case sensitive so you don’t have to worry about capitalization.

If you click on a link and you get a message that the page is not found click on the back button and try the cached page; see below

Google will search the WEB and user groups

You will find a title bar similar to below, WEB is highlighted so you will be searching the WEB. If you click on Groups you will search the usergroups. Be sure to search both places for information

Following are some example search strategies

If you search for information on a surname, eg Orr you may get 1200000 hits, among these are links to sites about Bobby Orr a hockey player. Since I am not interested in him lets search for Orr –bobby; no space between the – and Bobby. This reduces the hits to 963000. I notice Wendy Orr an author lets try Orr –bobby –Wendy this reduces the number of hits even further. You could continue this process until you get a reasonable number of sites to look at.

Another strategy

Looking for information on my Abraham Straight who was also known as Abram Straight.

1. Straight. Google found 23,200,00 hits, way to many for me to look at.

2. Straight Family, results 6,380,00 still to many.

3. Straight Genealogy, results 153,000. That’s getting the number down but after looking at the first result I found it was an audiotape, " The Internet for Genealogy: Setting Straight the Myths and Misconceptions" very nice but not what I wanted.

This was not what I wanted what is going on? It found all three of my keywords but did not find Abraham Straight. Google uses what is called an implied AND, meaning that it is searching for "Straight AND Abraham AND genealogy not quiet what I had in mind. Lets try adding quotes around Straight Abraham, this reduced my hits to 3, two of which were relevant but after thinking for a minute I noticed that the sites have Straight, Abraham what would happen if I used "Abraham Straight" genealogy? no matches. Well maybe nobody has a web site with Abraham Straight on it but is there any mention of Abraham Straight in history. Lets search for "Abraham Straight" history, all I got appeared to be references to the Biblical Abraham. How about "Abram Straght" History, there he is. Somebody has put a gedcom file on Rootsweb’s genealogy forum on My Abram Straight. But is that is the only reference to Abram? Lets try "abram straight" genealogy

Searching for "Abram Straight" yields references to only Abram Straight not Straight Abram. Adding genealogy eliminates both some irrelevant hits but also some relevant ones.

Adding his wives first name Eunice adds some interesting hits "Abraham Straight" Eunice.

Adding dates such as birth, marriage or death; be careful if you add the exact day month year you may eliminate relevant links.

Yet another method is "Abraham Straight OR "Straight Abraham" OR "Abram Straight" OR "Straight Abram" This search looks for each of the four names and returns links to any of the names.

Summary

There is no correct way to search the Internet using Google, just different strategies that may help you find the kind of information that you want.

A suggested method is to use your ancestors given name surname enclosed in quotes eg "Abraham Straigth" OR "Straight Abraham" You can reduce the number of hits by adding a date, wife’s name, place. Remember, as you eliminate hits you may be eliminating relevant hits.