This Blog Post could just as easily be a Web Master / SEO post, or one the you might find in an online study course for computer basics. However, drawing on my Web Master skills and knowing a bit about how Search Engines like Google work I’ve been able to find some things that I would not otherwise been able to find!
These tips should help you whether you’re using Google, MSN, Yahoo, or any other search engine including Nova Scotia Vital Stats, Family Search, or the Canadian Census Records.Whether you’re searching for Genealogical information or other unrelated information.
First of all, almost all search engines pay no attention to capitalization! Most Search Engines automatically recognize text in either upper or lower case.
Try using “Marks” to find and limit search results to specific words or phrases.
Try using m. and marr. and married and marriage all separately when looking for marriage information.
Try using parts of words! For example, if you’re looking for Elizabeth Smith, try Eliza Smith. Often you’ll get more results than the one you’re looking for but if you’re looking for Elizabeth and someone has her recorded as Eliza you’re never going to find her!
That is because Search Engines will find results within words. Like “Eliza” within “Eliza”beth.
The Nova Scotia Vital Stats (NSVS) is especially good at that!
The other ting to be aware of when searching the NSVS is middle names and initials!
What I mean is if you search for Charles Dixon rather than C. Dixon you’ll get different results!
Let’s look at the following example…
(Click Here to open NOVA Scotia Vital Stats to use their Search Function)
I know that Charles Dixon married Fannie Ward in 1874. So I go look for Charles Dixon and I see no such marriage! Why not? What can I do? How can I find this record?
However, I know this record exists (I’ve looked previously to be sure)
So, how do we find it?
Actually there’s a few ways!
What id we were to, as mentioned above look for part of the name? For example, let’s look under just C Dixon. By doing so we find C Dixon married to Fannie Ward in Halifax during 1874. Although it would not have worked in this case, we could also have searched for Chas which is an abreviation I’ve seen used elsewhere within the NSVS.
Now, let’s pretend for a minute that we did not find the marriage record we were looking for, I’ve seen times that if there is a middle name it will not come up under the first name!
So, what else could we do?
We can look for Fanny Ward. Go ahead and do a search for Fanny Ward. Nothing showing for a marriage to a Charles Dixon right? So, now, let us look for part of the word, let’s search for Fan Ward.
What did you find?
A marriage record for Fannie Ward and Charles Dixon, right?
The other thing to try when using NSVS is just entering the family name and the date. This sometimes will bring the desired results.
As with the prior example, the same thing would happen in some search engines. If you look for Fanny it dos not necessarily show results for Fannie. However if you use only part of the name it will show results for both.
Some Family Names are notorious for this, things like Hurlburt and Hurlbert can make a difference.
Another thing I’ve tried in Search Engines is getting place specific. When searching use the name your looking for and include the place name. (your name at your residence) This helps to reduce the number of results and gives you a better chance of finding the person you’re looking for.
I hope some of this has helped. I know many of you were probably aware of some of this, but I know that if I had known it when I was starting out it would have saved me some time, and perhaps even a few headaches.
I welcome you to list your comments, questions, and suggestions in the comments section below.
I’ll try to address questions in future Blog Posts.
Sincerely,
Brian Hurlburt
For those of you who did not read the previous Post on GEDCOMs I suggest you start there.
Click Here to Read Working With GEDCOMS!
As for more tips on GECOMs… my suggestion is RUN! Don’t walk, do not pass GO, do not collect $200 unless you’re silly enough to have someoe ask you to combine their GEDCOMs!
Actually GEDCOMs are not that bad, depending on the program you use — I use Legacy– the program and it’s HELP menu should be able to get you through the worst of it.
I think the best word of advice is only share GEDCOMs with those whose research you really trust, be sure you each do a thorough database clean up before the merging of your GEDCOMs, and weed out or merge the duplicates within your combined database, review the entire file for possible errors and potential problems (better programs like Legacy have built in means of helping you do this), and then when you’re comfortable you’re satisfied that you’ve done your best and your database is up to snuff, then you’re done! (Beginning to see why I said run!)
Perhaps the worst part of combining your GEDCOM with someone else’s is that no matter how much you trust that other persons work, you’re left with a number of names that are unfamiliar to you and possible information which you know was not from your own research. Which makes you, or at least it makes me, uncomfortable.
So, all in all, would I do it again? Yes, learning from my mistakes and following the foregoing guidelines I would do it again. Am I so uncomfortable I’d return to my previous GEDCOM and not use the now cleaned up worked on merged GEDCOM file, no… I’ll likely continue to question and over time I’ll try to find my own reference material and do my own research to clarify and back up the newly merged GEDCOM, but I definitely won’t go back to my prior, smaller GEDOM.
HOWEVER, I will always keep my original GEDCOM file so that I can use it as reference material when I have questions about the new merged file. In fact I suggest keeping both original GEDCOM files and using them as reference when questions or possible problems arise.
All in all, working with GEDCOM files can be rewarding, help you to enlarge your database rather quickly, and in my opinion can become very tedious and mind numbing when you take time to do things right. To be honest, I think the new GEDCOM file I’m using is a good one, I’ve become so bored of it, I’ve moved on and will continue to work with aspects of it as time goes on. For now I’m satidfied that it is almost squeaky clean and except for some misplaced dates and such that were probably present in both originals it seems like a good working copy has resulted from our combining our efforts.
So now, my cousin Karen from YarmouthOnline.ca and I will have effectively doubled our original works. We can get back to researching, and for myself at least I can continue entering my early work from the early 90’s on to the computer using that program I love so well, … yes, I’m going to get in another plug for Legacy! (Did I mention it’s FREE!
I’m relatively new to GEDCOMS, I’ve spent most of my time pouring over old documents at local libraries, museums, and archives, and it’s only been the past couple of years I’ve been experiencing what it’s like to use the Internet for doing genealogy type work. So, when it comes to GEDCOMS, I’m sort of learning as I go.
About two weeks ago my cousin, Karen Hipson, who has a wonderful obit resource at yarmouthonline.ca, agreed to combine our work and we swapped GEDCOM files. Considering we each had over 6000 names in our databases it meant we’d each have an amazing advance in our work by combining our work.
It’s the first time I’ve ever shared my work in such a way and have my druthers as to whether I’ll ever do it again! Actually when it’s completed it’ll benefit us both and it will be worth the work.
However, I’m sure that we both feel the same… what if the other has made mistakes? I know my work is very well researched and I also know that Karen is very apt at whatever she puts her hand to. However, the question will now forever dog us as to whether our information is as accurate as it once was. I’m sure she will have the same feelings, as would anyone who cares about the quality of their work.
So, mainly because of this I’ve not only been combining our GEDCOMS, I’ve also been going over it all in detail. Looking for duplicates and those family lines that may link up. As well as trying to find proof for the areas were we differ. Not placing any more importance on one side or the other but finding proof to support our final outcome.
N ow, it’s occurred to me that you may be reading this and askin, “What the heck is a GEDCOM?”
Perhaps I should have explained that earlier.
A GEDCOM is described on Wikipedia as “an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, a specification for exchanging genealogical data between different genealogy software”
Cyndislist describes a GEDCOM much the same way and states, “GEDCOM is a generic, database format designed to allow users to share family history database files between differing genealogy software program”
So hopefully that’s answered the question for you?
Now I do offer some cautions when considering the use, especially the sharing, of GEDCOMS.
Realize that the information in another person’s file may not match your own. So this creates a few situations. One is good in that it will (or should) cause you to review your own work and find more or better proof for your conclusions. This should involve setting aside personal bias and finding proof for the final analysis and conclusions. Another thing that is not so good is that it means that your new combined GEDCOM database will have new areas that are unfamiliar to you and you should try to familiarize yourself with these areas and prove them as well. Combining GEDCOMS also produces a number of duplicates that obviously need to be found and merged.
By now I’m sure you’re beginning to see why I’m leery to combine my GEDCOM with others. However all said once I’m done with this work prohect I may well look to do so but it is, or can be, a massive undertaking.
Now if you are looking to do so, I have a few tips I’m going to share. Bare in mind that I’m relatively new to this and I do welcome your comments below inregards to what else may help and perhaps what should be done, or avoided, when combining GEDCOMS.
The first project I worked on was eliminating the duplicates. I work with Legacy and thankfully the program helps with this process. (Legacy is a free software that is wonderful to work with).
Using my Legacy program I began to determine which names were duplicates, and which similar names were not, and come up with a list of names that needed to be addressed. The other thing that Legacy does is allows me to tag individuals as I go so I can easily look at them later as well as a list of tagged individuals that may have the same or similar names but are not duplicates. Now I should have been able to take these lists of duplicates and non duplicates and simply worked through them. Making the job much easier.
However, what I did is after creating these lists, (Legacy really does make it easy to compile these lists) I began to overhaul my entire data base! Over 12,000 names!
This has been a long and arduous process. Yet, when I’m done I’ll have a much better knowledge of the entire data base and will be less likely to have errors that may have come from combining the GEDCOMS.
Doing it this way does take a long time!
At least a minute or so per name on the list!
It may seem a bit excessive but I’ve spent yeas on compiling half of it, I want to be sure to take the proper time on combining the files and knowing things are right. Or as close to right as possible, we all make mistakes… yes, I even found a few of my own!
Yet when I’m done most of the data base comprising my new GEDCOM will be reproved. Especially anywhere there are conflicts, duplicates, and such.
To my way of thinking this is exactly what should be done when combining GEDCOMS.
Now, I know that once I’m done working on my list of duplicates and so on, I’ll need to look at spouses and family groups, check for possible problems, thankfully Legacy has a way of doing the check for potential problems. Don’t worry I’ll be checking that too!
Once I get it all done, about another week the way things are going, I’ll do another post letting you know what else I learn and perhaps providing a few more tips.
There is one tip I want to share with you now.
Sometimes when checking for duplicates there are just to many! What I mean is what happens if you have say, 18 Hans Westhoeffer’s! Yes, that’s exactly what I have! To make it worse these names are foreign to me as they were part of Karen’s work. Yet, because I’ve already merged my duplicates I wanted to check and make sure they were right, and that no duplicates were still there. So I began trying to sort them all out. All 18 people with the same names! All diferent to by the way.
After getting lost, or feeling like it, I thought of another way of doing it!
Thankfully Legacy assigns a unique identifier number to each name. So what I did was I mentally put aside the name and concentrated on the numbers. So I then had not 18 of the same name, but 18 different numbers. So, in turn 18 unique individuals to work with. Then after I sorted that all out, still using paper and pen to be sure, I checked making sure they were all alright and found that Karen had done a wonderful job, I had not combined any that should not have been combined. (Sometimes in the process of merging duplicates it’s easy to make a mistake on father and son with the same name). Everything thankfully proved out to be right and so now I can move on.
In fact Move On is just what I’m going to do! This Post is already too lengthy and I’ve got to get back to my work.
One closing thought however, … backup, backup, backup,!!!
Always and continually back up your work and make copies of it.
Store the copes in different areas, online, off line on your computer, and off line on a disk. That way if your program, website, or computer, go down you’ll not loose your work.
Throughout this post I’ve told you about Legacy the program I use to do a lot of my genealogy work. It’s free, it’s easy to use, makes my life enjoyable, and you owe it to yourself to check it out. If you’ve not used it, you’ll be glad you looked. If you do use it you know what I mean!
Visit the Legacy Web Site today!
Sincerely,
Brian Hurlburt
genealogy@yarmouthcoutny.com
In my last Blog Post I wrote about the benefits of using Museums, Libraries, Family Research Centers, and other research sources, in the process of doing our genealogy work.
I also wrote about the importance of doing at least some of your own ancestry and genealogical research. It truly is a tremendously rewarding way of getting to know about your family history.
Yet, there are times that seeking professional genealogical researchers for help is necessary.
What happens when you’ve done everything you can do and you hit those inevitable road blocks!?
That’s a great time to contact a professional genealogist. Of course if you need your family history to be accurate and complete and without error that is also another great argument for employing the services of a professional genealogist. Of course if you don’t have the time to do your own research, and you can afford to pay someone to do it, employing the skill of a professional genealogy researcher is one of the best ways to go.
There are many local researchers, myself included, who you could have look up information for you. Yet they may not have the skill level and equal access to the tools and resources of a professional genealogist.
So, when you need your ancestry done for you and you’re ready to hire a professional genealogist to do it for you, where do you go?
Well, as I mentioned in a previous post, most local resource facilities do have people who you can hire to do the work for you. Many of the local archives, museum, and genealogy societies, have access to professional genealogists. As do we!
Yet, what happens when you want to get outside help? Many local genealogists specialize in there local area and often branch out into other areas. Yet what happens when you need specialized help you may not be able to get in your local area?
Well, one such solution I’ve found is ProGenealogists.com.
They are a Professional Genealogist Group in Utah that have an amazing website and Professional Genealogists with experience, knowledge and access to millions of records who are ready to assist you in United States, Canadian and European research!
They conduct their family history and genealogy research at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and in archives across the world.
They specialize in genealogical research and working with other well-skilled genealogists located at several major archives and libraries worldwide.
They specialize in researching and documenting family histories; including all aspects of United States research, immigration, European, Canadian, lineage societies, colonial research, and Medieval British research.
At ProGenealogists.com an expert professional genealogist will work one-on-one with you and help you to find a treasure trove of knowledge.
As I mentioned they have an excellent website, to read more about ProGenealogists.com and get a feel for what they can do for you, visit their Site at www.progenealogists.com.
Not only do they have some of the best researchers available, they also have a number of handy free gadgets on their website. Things like tools, calculators, and dictionaries, to help you to discover what day you were born on, know exactly how old you are, and even what happened in history on the day you were born!
So, I hope this has helped some of you who are researching and seeking to know more about your roots!
Sincerely,
Brian Hurlburt
genealogy@yarmouthcounty.com
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I sort of said something in my last post that has been bugging me! I mentioned how “When I began researching in the early 90’s it meant having to go to the Museums and Libraries and other sources.” The line following made it sound like I think that is not needed these days. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
Museums, Libraries, Family Research Centers, and other places that keep source documents are of utmost importance in any quality research.
What I meant was now that were able to communicate and research via the internet it makes things a whole lot easier than physically having to go out to do all of our research.
There are a number of valuable research facilities in our local area as I’m sure there are in yours. They not only provide a valuable source of information but often tips and research guidance as well.
Then there is the ability to hire someone to do our research for us. However for a more rewarding and meaningful relationship I do suggest doing your own research. For only by pouring over old documents, collaborating with other researchers, and physically getting involved in your own family history and genealogy can one truly appreciate ones own ancestry.
Now, again that’s not to say that their is not a place for Professional Genealogists. I just think that if you really want to experience the true excitement and satisfaction of exploring your ancestry then you should at least attempt to do that on your own.
Be smart about it, seek advice from other researchers, visit your local library, museums, and research centers, and collaborate with other researchers. Then when you’ve done all you can do, or when you come to those seemingly impossible dead ends! Yes, we all find them! That in my opinion is the best time to turn to the experts.
Most places that have genealogical resources also have researchers on staff or at their disposal who you can hire to help you with your work, or to do the work for you if you so choose. After all, doing your own genealogy is often very time consuming and if you have more money than time then hiring someone to do your research is definitely the way to go.
Or as I mentioned, if your doing your own work and need some help over coming the hurdles and road blocks hiring a professional is definitely recommended.
Hiring a professional genealogist is also the best way to insure the information you have is accurate.
Again local research facilities usually have people there who can be hired to do research. Many of our local research centers are located on our Blog Roll (the list of links on the right).
I’m also working on finding independent researchers as well as Professional Genealogists who will help if you come to us seeking advice. By the way, if you are a researcher, or Professional Genealogist, looking for some extra work I’d love to hear from you also. Please don’t wait for me to contact you!
So, i hoe that this Blog Post has helped you in your journey to explore your roots.
I’d love to hear from you, leave your comments below or send us an email today.
Make it a great day!
Sincerely,
Brian Hurlburt
genealogy@yarmouthcounty.com
http://YarmouthCounty.com
