Difficult names to search for ?

[KathyM]

  I would welcome any tips for searching for my CHURCH family - I have quite a lot of info. but whenever I do a search I find I have too many results .....usually every Church in the area ! .......is there a way I can make it a surname and not in a religious context ?

[Welsh Jen]

The only thing I can think of is to put "Church Surname" in the search engine.

I think undoubtably you will have this problem in anycase. I have it too when researching "Park"

[Berlin-Bob]

there is a web-site with tips for using Google for Genealogy. 
It's here on the boards somewhere, but I can't find it, so here it is again:

http://www.searchforancestors.com/archives/google.html


one tip, for instance:

What if my surname is also a common word?

If you are searching for a surname that is also a noun, such as Church, Street, Park or Fox, you probably have found that most of your searches bring up unwanted web pages about churches, streets, parks, and foxes that have nothing to do with the surname. To find genealogy pages with these common noun surnames, use google math:

Try searching for [ church +family ] or [ church +surname ] or [ church +born ]. The keywords [ family ] or [ surname ] or [ born ] are likely keywords that will appear on a genealogy web page and will help limit your search results to web pages about the surname. In this case the word family or surname or born will have to appear on the web page to appear in your search results greatly increasing the chances that the web page will be genealogy related. This works rather well for all surname searches, not just those that are common nouns.

maybe this will help !

[Berlin-Bob]

here is another Google-Search help site:

http://www.genealogy-search-help.com/

this takes your "family" data and turns it into a "google-like" input"

[KathyM]

That's good ....... not used that before.... thank you

[Hackstaple]

Bob - thanks for the idea. I googled [Southern+surname]. I got the usual 10000 pages where Americans are nattering about their Southern heritage - that being the States and not the surname.

[polidor]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that how you worded your Google query would give you a more accurate 'hit'

For instance, i've just tried googling the words--Herbert de Lina Woods-- loads of stuff came up on screen but only in bits, such  as,Herbert highlighted, some with De highlighted

, more script with Woods, or lina woods,  I think you get the picture.

Of course its more than possible that there was absolutely nothing on the 'net' about my Herbert De Lina Woods but whenever i try to Google more than a one word search i end up with a few titbits[sometimes]  plus loads of stuff that has nothing to do with what i'm looking for  so--if someone has a tip for simpler Googling can you please let me into the secret!!!   Poli.


Moderator Comment: topics merged

[mike175]

I believe it helps to put "quotation marks" around the search phrase . . . but I'm no expert 

Mike

[deeiluka]

Yes - quotation marks around more than one word bring up that exact phrase., eg  "Thomas John Smith" for example.

Another handy and easy thing to do is to enter a word, leave a space, then put + and immediately another word or phrase with no space after the + sign.

There are lots more ways of searching too.

Here's a good article.....
http://genealogy.about.com/library/weekly/aa041700a.htm

......dee