Transcript Findin’ Folks - OLLI at Auburn

Findin’ Folks
Browser
 Use browser to access the web
 Internet Explorer (Microsoft)
 Firefox (Mozilla)
 On all PCs
 Requires internet connection
 Provides access to millions of
websites
 Too much information!
Search Engines
 Helps find some information on web
 Some examples
 Google (www.google.com)
 Bing (www.bing.com)
 Yahoo (www.yahoo.com)
 Find text, pictures, maps, news, etc
 Try Advanced Search
 They are good, but miss much
Hidden Web
 Also called
 Deep web
 Invisible web
 Pages not indexed by search engines
 Unlinked pages
 Sites requiring signon
 Databases
 www.searchsystems.net to see what’s available
 No need to pay – search for database
What to do with data
 Print - all or part
 Copy and paste into document
 Create pdf (PrimoPDF)
 Download from www.primopdf.com (free)
 Save images (census, etc)
 Save web address of good sources
 Save as bookmark/favorite
Google Searches
 Search for all words anywhere on page
 john smith coosa
 Exclude some words (use -)
 Auburn –university –al -alabama
 Search for exact phrase (use “ “)
 “john jacob smith”
 Search within specific website (site:)
 “john jacob smith” site:rootsweb.org
 Search for specific filetype (filetype:)
 “john jacob smith” filetype:ged
 Search newspaper (source:)
 hoan source:milwaukee
Searching – in general






There is no standard
Use help if available
Use advanced search if available
Refine search - use more terms
Good to know one really well
Are symbols included in search?
On-computer searching
 Ctrl-f to search within application
 Web page in browser
 Word document
 PDF file
 Symbols should be included
 use smith, john not smith john
 Can then do Find Next
That’s what I was looking for
 Select text (click and drag to
highlight)
 Copy (Ctrl-c or Edit…Copy)
 Go to application (word processing
app)
 Paste (Ctrl-v or Edit…Paste)
Searching databases
 No standard - use Help
 Some allow use of ?, *, and, or, not
 ? Allows that letter to be anything
 r?d gives rid, rod, red
 * replaces several letters
 rob*son gives robison, roberson, robertson,
robinson, etc
 AND and OR and NOT would be used for
searching blocks of text
Finding current folks
 Not perfect, but here are some to try






www.peoplefinders.com
www.intelius.com/index.php
www.ussearch.com/consumer/index.jsp
www.peopledata.com
www.zabasearch.com
www.whitepages.com
Finding Recent Folks
 Obituaries
 www.legacy.com/Obituaries.asp?Page=ObitFinder
 SSDI – Social Security Death Index
 Information on most who died since 1963
 Birth date, death date
 State where issued, Place last lived
 SSN
 Many have SSDI, but try ssdi.rootsweb.com
 Advanced Search
Finding Names Using Tax Rolls
 Many counties have tax rolls online
 Do search on ‘property tax county state’
 May contain additional information
 Legal name
 Maiden name
 Childs name