If at first you don’t succeed… try AncestorSearch

The latest newsletter from UK webssite LostCousins.com contained the following story. It’s such a great example of a success story using my AncestorSearch tool that I just have to share it.  It’s an important reminder that exactly how you format your Google search really does make a huge difference in the results you get; AncestorSearch helps format your Google search to achieve more focused and successful genealogical search results.  See here and here for more background info, and give it a try — even for those ancestors you’ve searched for hundreds of times before to no avail. Here’s the story: … Read more

Updated: AncestorSearch using Google Custom Search, version 1.1

This is an update to my original post, “Does this Google Custom Search help find records about your ancestors?“ You may recall that I built the AncestorSearch form as a timesaver for my own genealogical web searches, and I decided to share it on my website in case others find it useful too.  (As a reminder, the AncestorSearch form performs a Google search that is optimized for finding web pages mentioning ancestors by making use of  Google search techniques including quoted phrases, checking both firstname lastname, and lastname firstname order, placing the “OR” statements and parenthesis in the right places, and so on.)    … Read more

Does this Google Custom Search help find records about your ancestors?

[I’ve added an update to this original post here: https://www.randymajors.org/2011/06/new-ancestorsearch-version-15-see] I hesitate posting this prematurely, but I welcome some initial feedback from the genealogy community on a search form that I’ve built. I’ve built an “AncestorSearch” Google Custom Search form on my blog that I’ve been using to find records on my own ancestors, and it’s worked pretty well for me so far over the last several weeks.  I’m choosing to share it now in case others find it useful as well.  Basically, this AncestorSearch search form attempts to filter through much of the irrelevant noise on the web and return … Read more

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