AncestorSearch Alert: Your ancestor is long gone, but Google may find something new tomorrow!

According to an internet study, Google is adding an average of 68 MILLION new web pages to its search index EVERY DAY!

What if one of those new pages contains a mention of your ancestor?

Think of all of the possibilities:  new archives coming online all the time, old books and newspapers being scanned, people writing genealogy blog posts, newly indexed records becoming searchable…and so much more.  So how do you make sure you don’t miss something important?

To make it easier to remain informed about new pages that contain a mention of your ancestor, you can now SET A GOOGLE ALERT in the AncestorSearch on Google Search tool.  After you fill out your search on AncestorSearch, just click the “Set Google Alert” button near the bottom of the tool:

Here’s a quick example

Let’s say you want to be informed everytime someone mentions the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks.  Here’s how to do it:

1. Fill out the information in AncestorSearch as shown (learn how AncestorSearch focuses your search results):

2. Click the “Run Full Google Search” just be sure your search is behaving as expected.  Close the tab that opened with the search results so that you can go back to AncestorSearch.

3. If all looks good with the search, now you can click the “Set Google Alert” button at the bottom of the tool.

4. The Google Alerts window appears, where you can customize the alert options, including how often you want to receive update (as-it-happens, at most daily, at most weekly), search sources (automatic, news, blogs, web, books, discussions, etc), language, region, how many (only the best results, all results), and delivery options (e-mail address, RSS feed).  Here’s what the Google Alerts setup window looks like:

5. Once you’re done setting your Alert options, just click the “Create Alert” button, and you’re good to go!  If you ever want to alter or delete the Google Alert, just go to https://www.google.com/alerts and make any changes.

Remember, AncestorSearch uses the full power of Google, it’s just a timesaver and keeps you from having to type awkward symbols and syntax into Google Search, like this:

“thomas lincoln”|”lincoln, thomas” “nancy hanks”|”hanks, nancy” 1804|1805|1806|1807|1808 marriage|married|marriages|wedding|wed|marry|intention

I hope this addition helps you keep uncovering more and more new old information on your ancestors!

If you find this helpful, please share it with your friends!  And maybe I’ll see you at RootsTech 2020 next week!