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Searching Online
Suppose you’ve gathered information about your immediate family by asking your parents questions about yourself and your family. You’ve started a family tree and filled out some forms. You’ve labeled interview recordings and have typed up the interview text and saved it on your computer or in your binder. You and your parents have searched through family papers and records.
Now you need to dig deeper and farther back in time. A lot of the information you’re looking for won’t be things you know, or even things your parents know. Where do you go from here? The answer could be as near as your computer or as far as your local library.
Just as your parents and relatives are your primary sources of genealogy information, the public records you can search are your secondary sources. They will help you dig deeper, and go farther and farther back into time.
When it comes to those secondary sources for researching your family tree, your computer is a great help. Online, you can find information, listings, even copies of documents, but you have to know how to search, what to look for, and where to look.
You probably have a favorite Internet search engine already. Google and Yahoo are two popular search engines you can use in your online journey to find information about your family!
STARTING THE “SEARCH”
Here’s an example: Let’s say your grandfather told you that his grandfather came to the United States in the early 1900s. You don’t know the year, and you don’t know how he traveled. First, you would go to your favorite search engine and type in his name. Put quotation marks around the name so the search engine will search for the first and last names together. Did you get any hits? Maybe not, or maybe you are surprised to see a list of several people with that name. Can you narrow the search? Check the details given: the year, the age of the person, where he emigrated from or where he lived. If the names listed are clearly not your grandfather’s grandfather, don’t give up. Other search engines could have access to different information, and there are other places to search.
FINDING VITAL RECORDS
Do you have any idea where your great-great-grandfather lived and worked, and when and where did he died? For that sort of information, your next stop would be to search websites that provide free access to vital records (many websites charge a fee for use, but allow you to try it out first free). Vital records are official records of birth, death, marriage, and divorce organized by state or county in the United States. Some of this information is also picked up by genealogical sites, such as familysearch.com, or ancestry.com. At the site, you type in your relative’s name and any other details that might be helpful. But have patience. Searches can take time, especially if you have to check different states or locate appropriate websites in different countries.
As you do your searches, you may come up with many bits of information about your relative. You may find his social security number (available online after a person has passed away), his wife’s name, where they were married, where they lived, and even his occupation—all terrifically helpful. Save the information in your digital files, print it out for your binder, or write the results of your searches onto that relative’s loose-leaf page, date it, and copy down the full web address at the top.
CHECKING CENSUS RECORDS
Census records are another “must” search for information on ancestors who lived in the United States at least seventy year ago. A census is a count of people who live in an area. These records are taken at certain times, generally every ten years, in countries around the world. Census takers go from door to door and fill out forms on every person living at that address. Sometimes, people are asked to fill out and send back census forms that they receive in the mail. So, if you search for your great-great-grandfather’s name in the census records and find it, you’ll learn a lot of things about him and about other family members living at that time at the same address. Go to earlier and later census records and you will be able to track changes in the family from census to census, such as new births (age 7 in 1830), and likely deaths (was 82 in 1830; in 1840 no longer living at that address), job changes, and much more.
In the U.S., census records are available for every decade from 1790 to 1940. To protect the privacy of the people who responded, census records are not available until seventy-two years after the census was taken. Before that, records can only be obtained by the person whose name is in the census. You won’t be able to see the 1950 census until April 1, 2022. Information from some census records may be found online. To actually see and examine a particular filled-out census form, you may need to go to a federal archive facility.
Offices in various parts of the country make these records available for genealogy research and other purposes. You can also find free census records at places like https://www.censusrecords.com or https://familysearch.org.
Information available on census forms:
LINKING UP
As you do your online research, you’ll often find links to other websites where you might find more information to speed you along in your search. If you’re lucky enough to find yourself at a website with a whole lot of information about your family, don’t lose it! Enter it as a favorite so your browser will make it available to you whenever you want to go back to it. It might be a good idea, too, to keep track of all the websites you’re using in a separate document.
CHECKING GOOGLE IMAGES
Google Images (https://images.google.com) is a great place to search for photos of your ancestors or find photos from the time periods when they lived. Make sure that the images are listed as free. Then you will know that it’s okay to use them. Otherwise, you need to pay, and that might be beyond your budget.
USING SOCIAL MEDIA
You’d be amazed at the information you can find on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Long-lost friends often regain contact there, and that means long-lost relatives, too. If you don’t have a Facebook page, you might want to ask your parents if it’s all right for you to put one up. You could call it something like “Looking for Vazquez Ancestors.” That way, people can find you, too. You can also search Facebook and Twitter for people who share your last name and see if you are related or if they have information you might be able to use. But—and this is crucially important—be sure to read the social media safety tips sidebar on page 50.
The basics of searching
In case doing searches online is new to you, here are a few tips about how to go about it:
1. Connect search words in quotes; for example, “Clutters Boston” for a Clutter family who lived in Boston. The search engine will look for both “Clutters” and “Boston” together. That way you will avoid getting search results about closet clutters or the Boston Red Sox.
2. Don’t bother with small, connecting words like “the,” “and,” and “or.” Search engines ignore them.
3. Be specific if you know details: your great-uncle was a member of “Knights of Columbus Baltimore 1900s.” If you’re not sure, search instead for “Men’s Organizations Maryland 1900s” and check out the hits that come up.
Some Internet files can be very long, and would waste a lot of paper and ink if you printed them. If possible, copy and paste the information you want to keep to a file and save it that way. Otherwise, remember to carefully record all the information you find in your digital genealogy folder for safekeeping. Make a note of the website where you got the information, so you can return to it if you need to.
Social media is wonderful, but you need to be careful. Sometimes people masquerade as other people. Some-one whose picture suggests they are 15 years old might actually be 45 years old! Other times, people like to play pranks or get you to click on a link so they can collect data on you or even infect your computer with a virus.
Follow these tips to stay safe online!
Make sure your parents know that you are going onto social media. You might want to have them present when you do.
Never give out your home address, email address, age, or phone number.
Don’t put personal photos up on your social media account, because your search is going to be public.
Make sure that if anyone responds, you check with your parents before going ahead with your research.
Don’t download anything from people you do not know.
Don’t accept friend requests from anyone who is not your friend in real life. If that person seems like a relative, get your parents involved to see if it is safe for you to connect with that person.
In doing only a few searches, you will notice that some genealogical sites ask you to “sign in” and some have fees for using the site. Should you pay for access to information? That depends on how far you have gotten with your searches, and how important it is for you to have access to information that you can’t seem to find elsewhere. Check with your parents. They might have other leads to help you find what you are looking for.
If you are just starting out, it is much more fun to see just how far you can get on your own. Later, if and when you’ve hit a dead end, or there are “holes” in your research that you’re trying to fill, paying a small fee might be worth it. If you and your parents decide it’s a reasonable expense, test out a likely website if you can before signing up for the paid service. Some sites will let you do a few searches at no charge to give you an idea of the kind of information and how much is available. Maybe a few minutes’ work will fill that “hole” in your research without the need to plunk down a good part of your allowance or hard-earned cash.
Photos from those far away remind you to keep in touch.
Showing off new spring outfits is a time-honored tradition.