Geneagoogling with GeniAus

It's only two weeks until I present this lecture at The Society of Australian Genealogists. A check on the website today has indicated that there are still spaces available. The course is open to both member and non-members.  Full details can be found here on the Society website.

I'm presently updating my talk. I just hope that Google doesn't make any radical changes to its product in the next two weeks.

Word Order Matters

Tonight as I was preparing my handout for tomorrow's presentation on Effective Google Searching I was reminded of this one minute Youtube video that I share with participants because it explains why Word Order Matters when performing Google searches much better than I can.

I thought some of you might find it useful it too.

A Gold Star Day

Major intersection outside Willandra

 I was so proud of myself this morning, I managed to navigate to the venue for my talk without making one wrong turn. Willandra  the venue, is on a major intersection and not directly accessible from the road. Thanks to the handy map supplied by Maureen Copley from The Ryde District Historical Society I made no blunders and arrived in a stressfree state to give my talk.

On arrival I expressed interest in this historic building so Historical Society President, Janet Eastment, gave me a quick tour and overview of the history of the building. I was excited to have this chance as for many years I drove past this building on my way to and from work. Now my curiosity has been sated.

My purpose this morning was to talk to the Ryde Family History Group about effective Google searching and, for me, it was a most delightful and satisfying experience. Group members were bright and chirpy and willing to contribute to the dialogue by asking questions and adding information.Thank you for being such a wonderful audience I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with you.

Some of the lovely people at Ryde

At the conclusion of my talk I was presented with one of the group's publications "Women of Ryde" which contains biographies of prominent women from the Ryde area. Details of the Society's publications can be found here: http://www.rydehistory.org/html/our_published_books.html.

After a cuppa and chat I wandered out into the garden where I gave my camera a bit of exercise before heading home. Following are few pictures of Willandra.

View towards the Parramatta River, originally Willandra had a much larger plot of land

As I love taking pictures of doors I snapped Willandra's to add to my collection

Willandra owned by Ryde Council is home to the Ryde Historical Society and the Art Society

Genealogy losing popularity?

Wikipedia tells me that "Google Trends is a public web facility of Google Inc., based on Google Search, that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. The horizontal axis of the main graph represents time (starting from 2004), and the vertical is how often a term is searched for relative to the total number of searches, globally.<sup>[1]"

On a whim this morning I put the search term "genealogy" into Google trends to see how popular the term is in relation to other search terms. And what did I find?  It appears that since 2004 the term "genealogy" has lost popularity in relation to other search terms on Google.  Now I don't think that the pursuit of genealogy is declining; my theory is that people searching for "genealogy" were probably early adopters of the Google search engine.

What do you think?</sup>

Google Trends results for search "genealogy"

The Google Trends results page also gives a "Regional interest" map that indicates the areas where searches for the term "genealogy" have been most popular. There are no surprises here as the popularity of the term appears to be strongest in areas where English is the main language.

Regional interest map for term "genealogy"

A Date at my Local

Details of my next talk at my local library , Hornsby Shire Library, have been firmed up. I enjoy meeting up with local people who share my passion for family history; hopefully I will be able to share some tips that will help them further their research. Thanks to Neil Chippendale, Local Studies Co-ordinator at the Library, for the invitation to present.

I will be presenting a session GeneaGoogling : Effective Google Searches at the library at 6:30 pm on Wednesday 27 February. This will be a basic session that introduces attendees to some simple strategies to optimise their use of the Google Search Engine.

Bookings are essential; details will appear on the library website shortly. The library charges a small fee for attendance of these events

Would you consider a Chromebook?

Read about the latest development from Google here:

Next step in the Chrome OS journey

Good news from Google Australia

Official Google Australia Blog: Google Street Roo - exploring the outback one bounce at a time

Google Alerts - Hit and Miss?

On the recent episode of Geneabloggers BlogTalk Radio Dan Lynch discussed using Google Alerts to discover  pertinent new information relating to genealogy.

I am a great fan of Google alerts and have been using them for several years to find news to share with fellow genealogists via my blog, Twitter and lately Google+. I have a number of alerts for general and Australian  genealogy and android genealogy news plus alerts for the uncommon surnames in my tree.  Vanity causes me to have alerts for Geniaus, GeniMates and Jill Ball Genealogy.

A few of my alerts

From the options on offer I have selected All results for some alerts and Only the best results for others. I have been constantly underwhelmed by the number of alerts that arrive even for those alerts for which I have selected All results. I know that Geniaus is mentioned in blogs and on Twitter each day yet only on rare occasions do these mentions appear in my Google Alerts!

If you are not using Google Alerts I suggest that you should be but be aware that the results may not be as comprehensive as one might expect.

What has been your experience with Google Alerts?

Are you in the Grip of Google?

This week I visited an exhibition, Outpost - Art from the Streets,  on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour. I am not that into art but I really did enjoy some of the messages told in the works on display there.

Particularly relevant to my genealogy habit is my relationship with Google. This work by Mini Graff struck a chord with me.

Google +1 Button

Blue +1 Button

Have you noticed the +1 button at the bottom of posts on the genealogy blogs you read?  Do you have a Google Account?


Many bloggers have this button in the sharing options of their blog yet I see little evidence of the button's use on the posts I read. When I read and enjoy a blog post I click in the little box the the right of the blue +1 button. This tells the blogger that I have enjoyed their post and helps to push their post up higher in Google search results for the topic of the post.

In this busy, busy world we do not have time to comment on each and every post we enjoy. It takes less than a second to give a +1 to a post. To do this you will need a Google account and to be logged in to Google.

Blogging is supposed to be a collaborative activity. How about giving some positive reinforcement to the bloggers who write for you by hitting that +1 button.?

+1

Thanks to Joan at Luxegen for pointing out the new Google +1 button and indicating where it is on her website.

It's something new so, of course, I just had to add it to my blogs. I went to the link Joan had given, took a look and then decided to find more full instructions for a dummy like me. I found a a great set of instructions for adding the button to a Blogger blog at Cool Tricks n Tips right here.

I set to adding the button as per the instructions only to find the button was already on my blog but it was hidden away right at the bottom of each post.  Of course I want my readers to click on that button if they enjoy a post of mine so back I went to the Edit Page Elements Page for my blog and moved the set of sharing buttons to a more prominent position.  I don't know what I have done but that pesky sharing button doesn't appear to have moved.

As Joan said "If you’re logged into your Google account, try it out on my site". You'll find the +1 button at the bottom of each post.

Where have my Google alerts gone?

There has been something missing from my email box!

I have a number of Google alerts set up that inform me about happenings in the world of genealogy. I just realised this morning that I have not seen any for a couple of weeks so I investigated. It appears that when I started using Gmail's new smart labels to classify my mail that the alerts were labelled bulk and put into a folder with that label. I have a lot of folders set up and did not see that this folder had been added. The emails with other smart labels such as Notifications and Forums still appear in my inbox and I expected all emails to still appear there.

I now have 492 "bulk" emails  that have arrived since 11 March to read. These include my gogle alerts, genealogy newsletters, offers on bargain buys and confirmation of my ebay purchases. My twitter stream might be busy this afternoon if I find interesting snippets to share amongst them.

In future I must remember to read carefully about new features that I add to my  Google account so that I have a full understanding of the implications of their installation.

We got ready and Googled

My Google account got a great workout today when I presented "Get Ready to Google" at the Society of Australian Genealogists  Richmond Villa in Sydney.

Richmond Villa

 It's always rewarding to talk to an enthusiastic group who ask lots of questions. Today's group excelled in this area. Gold stars go to Malcolm and Joan whose questions (some very curly) and comments made today's session a truly collaborative one.I was pleased that, at the end of the session, some of the attendees were going home to play with Google and apply their new learnings. One lady was worried that she might not get any sleep tonight!

Presentation Outline

A couple of the people present asked me if I would be willing to talk at their local societies. I am happy to do so. On the Presentations page of my blog I have listed some suggested topics but I can also tailor talks to suit the needs of individual audiences. 

Get Ready to Google

Saturday morning, March 26th, will find me at The Society of Australian Genealogists presenting a workshop "Get Ready to Google".

I have been using Google since it was publicly launched in 1998. It took me a few months to move to Google from my favourite search engine of the time, Anzwers and I have been loyal to Google since then. Each time a new search engine appears I give it a go but I return to Google for the majority of my searches. As Google has developed new tools and services I have started using those for which I have a use.

On Saturday I will be sharing, with the genealogists present, some tips for using Google in genealogy research.

Bookings for the talk can be made via the SAG website.

View your Google Search and Web History

Although I have been retired from education for a couple of years I still follow a number of educators via their blogs and on Twitter. I learnt something new from Chris Betcher at Betchablog today that I think is worth sharing with fellow genealogists.

Chris wrote "Many people don't realise it, but if you use Google's search services while signed into your Google account (which you already have if you use Gmail) then your entire search history is automatically archived for you, along with statistics about how often you searched, for what, and when. It will track how many times a day you've Googled something, and even displays a little colour coded calendar to show you your overall search patterns. Some people may find the whole thing a little scary, a little Big Brother-ish maybe."
 
As I'm not too good at recording every site I visit in a genealogy research log this history will be a useful research management tool for me. As I am usually logged into Google when I use my computer it should keep an accurate record.

To find my personal search history I did a Google search for  "my google search history" and was directed to my secure personal history page that gave me information about the searches I had done today and yesterday. At the most simple level your web history is limited to searches. My searches for today are shown in the image below.

 

A clickable calendar on the page allows one to select any date to see what searches were done on that day.

 There is also an option on the web history page that allows one to "Expand your web history" Clicking on this takes one to a page with this information:

"All the web sites you visit, at your fingertips.

• View your web activity. You know that great web site you saw online and now can't find? With Web History, you can.
• Search the full text of pages you've visited. Web History allows you to search across the web pages, images, videos and news stories you've viewed.
• Get personalized search results and more. Web History helps deliver search results based on what you've searched for and which sites you've seen."

As I love to try things out I downloaded the latest Google Toolbar that is necessary "to associate the web pages you visit with your Google Account." I then selected the "Enable Web History" option.

As a test I visited three websites and then went back to view my web history - the three sites were listed with the time I had accessed them.

I will monitor this tool over the next few weeks and, if I decide it's of no use, I will turn it off but I suspect that I will find it a useful tool.

Is Mocavo all that it claims to be? ie "The best free genealogy content on the web"

Several tweeps alerted me today to Mocavo, a new search engine for genealogy  that on its home page states" The world’s largest free genealogy search engine, Mocavo.com, provides genealogists access to the best free genealogy content on the web including billions of names, dates and places worldwide. Mocavo.com seeks to index and make searchable all of the world’s free genealogy information."

Dick Eastman said "I suggest you remember this web site: Mocavo.com. I bet you are going to hear a lot about it in the next few weeks and months. In fact, I'd suggest you try it right now. I've been using the site for a while during its testing and have been very impressed. This thing actually works! Today, Mocavo.com went public and is now available to everyone."

Dick's seal of approval indicates that the resource must be pretty good so I thought I'd give it a whirl by searching for a few of my families. I then did comparison searches on Google.  Here is what I found:

Search 1. Pusell Australia - anyone with the name Pusell in Australia is related to me so I  entered these terms hoping to find something new.

Mocavo returned thirty-six results from  sites

www.kempfamilyhistory.com   

www.findagrave.com  

www.newspaperabstracts.com   

That it returned such a small number of results was disappointing. Some of the information on the Kemp Family Site is in need of updating to reflect recent events. There are no other links to family websites with information on the Pusells.

On the other hand a Google search for Pusell Australia ~genealogy (to narrow down to relevant information) returned many more links including:

MyHeritage.com

www.kindredkonnections.com

www.geniaus.net

www.kempfamilyhistory.com

archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com

www.cousinconnect.com

www.davidrawsthorne.com

austcemindex.com

http://www.genealogyplace.com

www.familysearch.org    and the list goes on...

I did other searches on Tierney Dungog, Curry Camden and Tooze Australia with similar results. Searching for Headlam Tasmania brought no results from Mocavo but  a wealth of good hits from Google.

Search 2  Nelson Piddlehinton - I next tried a search for a branch of the family from a small village in Dorset - Piddlehinton.
Movaco returned 3 results from
genforum.genealogy.com   
familytreemaker.genealogy.com 
www.archive.org 
The information on the family treemaker site has not been updated since 2005 and is not as complete as can be found on other sites.


Relevant results from Google came from these sites:
www.geniaus.net
www.rootschat.com/
www.opcdorset.org/  
www.familysearch.org
www.leshaigh.co.uk/
www.thedorsetpage.com
www.southwilts.com   
www.mappowder.org.uk     and the list goes on....

Need I say more?

I also tried some other searches for the UK:, Gowans Hawick and Ball Spotland to discover that Google returned more relevant results than Mocavo.

Search 3. Thinking that Mocavo might have a North American bias I decided to search for  "John Gowans" "New York" Mocavo returned two results that were not for my John from 

www.findagrave.com 

Google also returned results not related to my John Gowans but amongst them were some relevant links from sites including:

nytimes.com

www.geniaus.net

geniaus.blogspot.com

My little test of Mocavo is not at all scientific or comprehensive but when a company makes a statement like "Mocavo.com, provides genealogists access to the best free genealogy content on the web" I just have to see for myself. Mocavo might grow into a great resource but, for the moment, it is just one of a number of free resources available to genealogists.

Mocavo needs to amend the claims it makes on its home page, meanwhile I'll stay Google.

The Genealogist's Google Toolbox has arrived

Less than two weeks ago I blogged about some books written about Google. Within a week of ordering Lisa Louise Cooke's new book, The Genealogist's Google Toolbox, from Lulu it arrived at my home in Sydney, Australia.  As it was posted not from the United States but from Melbourne I am surmising that it was printed and bound in Australia. The ordering process was simple and I received email updates on the progress of my order.

There are 202 pages in this A4 softcover book. It has a table of contents and index, essential elements in a non-fiction publication. Find it quick - The "How To" Index provides readers with another means of accessing content.

The 18 chapters cover a number of the most popular Google applications  with a disproportionate coverage of Google Earth. There are only 11 pages devoted to Gmail and over 50 devoted to Google Earth.

The articles are clearly written and illustrated with many appropriate screenshots and examples. The pages are uncluttered with plenty of white space.

As a confident and competent Google user I did not learn much from this work, this is not a criticism of the book but a comment that the book is not particularly useful to me. The book would be a handy ready reference for genealogists who are unfamiliar with the Google stable of applications. It would also be useful as a workbook in a beginner's How to Google course.

10,000 Newspapers on Google Maps

I was alerted to this resource in a post by Mr Byrne on Free Technology for Teachers.

Newspaper Map says on its site:
In the Newspaper Map you can find newspapers from all over the world, translatable  to and from many languages with one click. In many cases you will also find links to the newspapers sites on social media like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. We collect, expand and update these links regularly.

For british users we have Newspaper Map UK

The following video explains how to use the resource




I can see this resource as being very useful for genealogists to locate newpapers from the cities and countries in which their ancestors lived.

The Genealogist's Google Toolbox

I am a Google lover and think that I am a fairly sophisticated user of Google. However, whenever I read an article or attend a lecture about this family of products I always learn something new.

My fascination with Google started in the late 1990s when it became my search engine of choice. I have hopped on the bandwagon with many of Google's newer applications as they have been launched. Today I use many, but not all, of the Google Apps. my favourites being Gmail and Picasa.

The first Google resource I purchased was Googlepedia: The Ultimate Google Resource (3rd Edition) but, as this was published in 2006, it is now out of date. I loved this book and found it extremely useful when teaching students and teachers about Google products. My next purchase was Google your family tree by Dan Lynch, this book aimed at genealogists was a more basic guide aimed at genealogists. Published in 2008 this book is now a little outdated and is due for a new edition. It is unfortunate that books about technology have a short shelf life.


A few days ago I noticed that there was a new book for genealogists on the market. Lisa Louise Cooke in her blog post this morning reminded readers about The Genealogist's Google Toolbox her new book "with all the best free state-of-the-art Internet tools I could find from the folks who dominate the online world: Google."

Lisa has chosen to publish her book through Lulu. The book is available in both hard and soft copy (.pdf), I elected to purchase a hard copy at $US24.95, if I find that I want to have this book on my computer I can then purchase the download for $14.95. Postage to Australia will take 3-5 days after the book is "processed".  Before I purchased I was able to look at a preview of the book on Lisa's blog. From the images shown I can see it has an impressive Table of Contents, appears to be well formatted and has clear explanatory screenshots.


I hope to be able to talk to Lisa Louise Cooke, who is also an Official Rootstech Blogger, at the Rootstech Conference in Salt Lake City.

It's not too late to listen

If you missed out on joining the Google webinar with Thomas Macentee about which I blogged yesterday and you can spare an hour then you are lucky. Legacy Family Tree have made the webinar and notes available on their website for you.


In a comment on my post " Geoff said...
"Glad it worked out well! We had a great time too. The recorded webinar and its handouts are now available at www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/webinars.asp. Thanks Thomas - great job!

By the way, I enjoyed my time in Australia in November on our Legacy Genealogy Cruise."

Geoff Rasmussen who made this comment was the facilitator for the webinar.