24 June 2013

Keeping up

How do you keep up with new information appearing online relevant to your ancestry? With new resources posted daily, even hourly, keeping up can be (another) full time job. Perhaps like me you've chanced on a site with information you wish you'd had months ago.
You don't have to leave it to chance. Here are a few tips some of which might work for you.
Search Google. Duh! Yes, you'll likely get inundated with links if you search for genealogy and a surname, or a place-name. Search for both and you make strike out, or still find yourself under a flood of information of Calgarian proportions.
We're looking for what's new.   Enter your search terms and see the first page of results. Above them see the menu



If you're using a smartphone you'll likely see an image of a spanner (wrench) instead of "search tools". Click on it and see another menu pop up which will usually read "Any time." Click the time period of interest, likely since you last conducted the search. The times refer to when Google found the page not necessarily the same as when the information was posted.

You can automate the process using Google Alerts, a free service at http://www.google.com/alerts to receive email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your queries.
Enter you search term and select from the drop-down menu items to refine to the option you prefer, then sit back and watch Google do what it does best, the searches. After a while you'll likely want to refine the search.

While preparing this post I did a search and stumbled on another way to keep up. The National Institute for Genealogical Studies has a news page at  http://www.genealogicalstudies.com/eng/news.asp which gives a snippet of various blog postings. Mine are paired with those of Jill Ball, great company to be keeping. Also find post summaries from Lorine McGinnis Schulze, Dick Eastman, Leland & Patty Meitzler


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