Genealogy Chat

Can anyone recomend any internet searches for genealogy which I should definately use in my research (I'm kind of thinking of free ones!). I already have used the LDS site, FreeBMD and gencircles. Are there any other obvious ones? David

David Depends what you are looking for. LDS and the IGI are great for 19th century and before; FreeBMD getting better all the time. I have various sites I use which are county-specific. Helen

Google Cyndi's list . there are loads of useful links there. Kim

http://www.genealogy-links(.)co.uk/html/freebies.html (remove brackets from around the full stop) Dee x

A tip, opposed to a site, that I've found most beneficial in some of my searches: Go to Google(.)com - Remember to remove the ( ) from the address - and type in the name you are researching. To narrow a search, where too many unrelated links pop up in the results, use " " around the name. For instance, when I am researching my LEWITT surname, I get hundreds and hundreds of links that include a well known artist SOL LEWITT who as of yet, is not connected to me. To alleviate those links having to do with Sol Lewitt, I enter my search as: "Lewitt" genealogy -Sol The minus sign (-) tells the search engine to exclude those links about Sol. When searching for John Lewitt, many links come up where the site results give me anything that says JOHN or LEWITT or JOHN LEWITT or things like Vincent JOHN Lewitt. To narrow down my search I enter " " John Lewitt around the whole name...."John Lewitt." When researching the Lewitt's in the UK (opposed to the ones in the US) I would do a search that looks like this: "Lewitt" genealogy -Sol +UK The plus sign (+) tells the search engine to look for the surname Lewitt in the UK but to leave out anything having to do with Sol Lewitt. You can search with as many - or + signs as you want to help narrow down searches that are related to your branches. "Lewitt" -Sol +Leicester +UK +US Keep in mind that search engines are geared to look for what you enter. An example being I am looking for John William Lewitt. I would search for him first using the full name, then by John W. Lewitt and then just John Lewitt. Although you may have a full name, some one else or a site that has information you are looking for may not have posted it the way you are searching for it.....so always check all possible ways that a name could be listed. Hope that helps some.....happy hunting! Judy

There is actually a limit to the number of search terms - I think it's about 10. I "overdid" it a year or two ago and got an error message telling me about it.

Ahhh! I stand corrected then! I obviously haven't gone over that "10" limit in my searches! Thanks Geoff! Judy :)

A week or so (?) ago, somebody published a tip on Google searching (I've forgotten where, it may even have been on GR, in which case, apologies for not crediting it). I used Google to search for my grandfather "hans margulies" and Greatuncle "Emil margulies". I found several references and was feeling very pleased with myself. The tip was: search for "Yourname surname" or "yourname surname interests". so I did, and came up with even more references !! There is a web-site with tips for Google and Genealogical searching , I posted it on a thread: "Gen. Tips on using Google ..." but here it is again: http://www.searchforancestors(.)com/archives/google.html Joy Kentish Maid also posted a tip (tips board) on the thread:"Google - useful search engine - ie" Enter "google" in the search bar above, to get both threads. for databases, try these threads on the tips board: enter "free census data" (self explanatory) enter "OPC" Online Parish Clerks enter "UK-BMD" for lots of BMD-Sites Good Hunting !

Just to emphasise Bob's last one http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/ If your county is covered they are very quick (smaller databases) and have records missing from GRO/1837/FreeBMD. Bob