Looking into your family history can be hard but also interesting. Luckily, we now have lots of tools on the internet that can help. One of the best tools is Google. This article will show you how to use Google effectively to find out about your family history.
You can use quotation marks (” “) to search for an exact phrase. For example, “robert de hoedt” will yield results where robert, de and hoedt appear in the same webpage. Note that this doesn’t necessarily only include results where all three of these words occur consecutively. Alternatively you can also use the plus (+) symbol. “robert” + “de” + “hoedt” is equivalent to having “robert de hoedt”.
I usually use the + symbol for search clarity. For example, if I want documents that include the words robert, de, hoedt, and ceylon, I would type it as “robert de hoedt” + “ceylon”. This way, it is easier for me to distinguish the name from any of the other terms that I’ve included in my search.
An asterisk (*) serves as a wildcard and can replace any word or phrase. This symbol is useful when you’re unsure about specific details. For example, “robert* de hoedt” will yield results for robert sidney de hoedt, robert james de hoedt, robert de hoedt etc.
Google Books is a repository of millions of books, some of which might mention your ancestors. Go to the Google Books homepage and enter your ancestor’s name in quotes. You can filter the results by date to narrow down your search. Furthermore, I narrow down the search by additionally providing words such as “ceylon” along with the names I’m searching for. So for example when I was researching the De Hoedt family that lived in Jaffna, my search would be: “de hoedt” + “jaffna” and then I would adjust the time period as desired. Be mindful that sometimes ancestor’s names would have spelling variations. For example, if I was searching for a person by the name of Annie Barbara De Hoedt, I would search using the following queries: “annie barbara de hoedt”, “annie de hoedt, “a.b de hoedt”, “a. de hoedt”, “anne de hoedt”, “anne barbara de hoedt” etc.
