Search strategy online for ancestors

What is the best strategy for searching online for your ancestors? Surprisingly, there are few simple rules that will lead to a dramatic increase in the reliability of the returns from a search with any search engine, be it Google, Yahoo, Ask, Alta Vista, Bing or whichever. These rules also work with nearly all of the online databases, including Ancestry.com, WorldVitalRecords and many others.

Before getting into the search rules, you must first understand tiny bit about a very complex subject, that is, Boolean logic. From Wikipedia, "Boolean logic is a complete system for logical operations, used in many systems. It was named after George Boole, who first defined an algebraic system of logic in the mid 19th century. Boolean logic has many applications in electronics, computer hardware and software, and is the basis of all modern digital electronics. In 1938, Claude Shannon showed how electric circuits with relays were a model for Boolean logic. This fact soon proved enormously consequential with the emergence of the electronic computer."
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