searching for online information€¦ · week 2 •database searching basics – •applying basic...

Searching for Online Information

Genealogy Reaearch: Week 2

February 18, 2016 1 Richland Place David R. Dowell

Today’s agenda

1. Student recitation: – Who is the one person in your family are you most

interested in learning more about?

2. Lecture: – Sharpening our online searching skills

3. Laboratory: – Playing in FREE genealogy databases on the

Internet

4. Next week we start the serious work. ;-)

February 18, 2016 Richland Place David R. Dowell 2

Week 2

• Database Searching Basics –

• Applying Basic Concepts to Searching Google

• FREE databases for your genealogy “speed dial”


Now on with the Class

Database Searching Basics


Database Searching Basics

Based on:

Google Your Family Tree:

Unlock the Hidden Power of Google by Daniel M. Lynch 2008


Two Important Search Concepts

Recall:

• Finding everything relevant to your search

Precision: • Not finding anything irrelevant to your search


Two Important Search Concepts

• These concepts are almost mutually exclusive.

• The more you maximize one you minimize the other.

• There is a continuum from one to the other.

• Recall --------------------------- Precision • One is not “better” than the other.

• It depends on the purpose of your search.


Boolean Logic to Steer Searches

• Boolean Logic: AND, OR, & NOT

• AND reduces recall but increases precision. All terms “anded” together must be present. It is a way to narrow search results

• OR reduces precision but increases recall. Any one of the terms “ored” together must be present. It is a way to cast a wider net when you are not finding enough.



• NOT reduces your recall by eliminating false matches but it increases precision. A “noted” term can not be present.

• Proximity searching means that search terms must be next to or near each other to eliminate irrelevant matches and improve precision.

• Wildcard is substituted for anything to increase recall.


Searching for “George” “Washington”

George Washington


Where are the results of George Washington University?

University

Washington George



• Using these theoretical concepts to “Googlize” your research:

• Any words listed in a Google search must be present—at least in some form.

• Listing too many terms can lead to no results (too much precision and not enough recall).

• Listing too few terms can lead to too many results (too much recall but too little precision).



Google uses AND and OR as Boolean operators but they must be in all CAPs for Google to recognize them as Boolean Operators.

- The minus symbol is the Google command for NOT. There must be no space between –and the term being noted.

~ The tilde is the Google command to find similar words. Again there must be no space between ~ and the term being “synonymed”.


Blank spaces matter!!



Google uses

“..” to group words that must appear adjacent to each other. They can be an exact name or a phrase.

* as a wildcard which means any word or phrase can appear at that spot in the document. For example a search for “Barack * Obama” should return the following Barack Obama, Barack H. Obama and Barack Hussein Obama.


Google Search Exercise

See handout@ http://goo.gl/YGccdB


http://goo.gl/YGccdB

“Free” Genealogy Sites


TANSTAAFL • “There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch –

TANSTAAFL”

• An acronym that expresses the idea that even if something seems like it is free, there is always a cost, no matter how indirect or hidden.


“Costs” to you for free sites

• Tax dollars already paid for it.

• Wants to sell you an expanded version.

• Wants you to read advertisements.

• Websites cost time and money.

• Servers cost money.

• Someone has to pay some way, some how.

• Very few are totally free to you.


“Free Sites” Handout is online

“Free” Genealogy Information



http://goo.gl/azz2



•Questions so far?


searching for online information€¦ · week 2 •database searching basics – •applying basic...

Documents