What search engines do you use most for your genealogical research?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Illya Daddezio on July 10, 2009 at 5:03pm

Call me biased, but I like the search engine I created and launched in October 2008: Live Roots (http://www.liveroots.com/) because it's search is focused on genealogical resources (offline as well). In addition, it offers real-time searches of all the major genealogy database sites, so you can do all your research in one place.

Permalink Reply by Terri O'Connell on July 21, 2009 at 7:20pm

So today I went to Liveroots.com for the first time. I found a few things that I have not seen before on my family. Looks like I will be subscribing to this in the near future as well. Thanks for the site Illya.

Permalink Reply by tami osmer glatz on July 10, 2009 at 5:24pm

Biased? nah! Nothing wrong with shameless self-promotion, especially when you DO have a really great site! I just ran a surname search (on http://www.liveroots.com) on a family surname that normally tends to defy any decent genealogy results, and came up with a whole list of really promising results - I especially like that it pulls in a lot of online books, some of my favorite resources. I'm definitely going to add that to my basic search list, and my toolbar! Thanks for the reminder.

Permalink Reply by Barbara Bradley Petura on July 12, 2009 at 1:00pm

While I often see the Google search engine mentioned, I rarely see the Google Books search engine on lists of valuable genealogy resources. And it should be there. By narrowing your search to Google Books -- especially when looking for early New England ancestors -- you can in some cases find full family genealogies, cemetery transcriptions and more.

See my post today on Google for Genealogy at the new GenealogyWise group Finding Family for Free. The group is linked to my blog Relative Musings.

Appreciate the ideas on search engines Clusty and LiveRoots!

Permalink Reply by Lisa A. (Thamm) Spegal on July 21, 2009 at 5:57pm

I found http://www.myheritage.com awhile back and it's a great site, I've used the genealogy search page quite often and it's come up with results I haven't gotten anywhere else (some lead to pay sites, others are free). The only thing I just noticed is it only works with Internet Explorer right now, which I was using but now use Firefox the most. Maybe it might help someone else find info they have yet to find though.
Try the research page search engine.

You can also put a family tree there as well. It has quite a few different segments to use. GOOD LUCK!

Permalink Reply by Judy Brooks Truchon on July 22, 2009 at 9:02am

I am a google addict and starting using it when it first hit the internet. Will have to check out Clusty as it sounds good.

Permalink Reply by Dae Powell on July 23, 2009 at 8:25am

I use Copernic Agent. You can read my review at ShoeString Genealogy.

Happy Dae·

Permalink Reply by Steven L Bonnell on July 24, 2009 at 6:00pm

I'll second Google Books...
and I'll go look at Live Roots and Clutsy.

Dogpile.com pulls in searches from many other search engines...

Also, check your local library... many have on-line access to other major databases for free,
just by using your library card number for access.

Permalink Reply by tami osmer glatz on July 26, 2009 at 5:13pm

FOR FINDING BOOKS:
I'm always looking for more ways to find books online to avoid having to hunt them down in some obscure library, or rent microfilm from the FHC. My favorites for books are (of course) Google Books, and HeritageQuest (usually available through your local public library's website), and Internet Archive. And since joining Genealogy Wise I've gotten to know and love Live Roots - a surname or keyword search there will bring up all sorts of online sources for books, among other things. Another place to search for copyright-free published material online (books, photographs, etc) is oaister.org, and yet another very similar that searches for texts online is Digital Book Index.

I love using books - histories, genealogies, etc, - to find stories about people I'm researching... putting "meat on the bones" so to speak. There's nothing better to bring someone to life than a good story.

Are there others that you like for finding books?

Permalink Reply by Lewis Buckingham on August 20, 2009 at 2:39am

I love finding books as well, and for ages Internet archive was my first port of call. Check out openlibrary.org for the next step for internet archive. They are associated with, and reference every book in, internet archive, and in addition, if you go to advanced search, at the very bottom of the page, there is an option too search the text within any scanned book.

The LDS also have a large online collection that is searchable by text at

http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/search.php

Lewis

Permalink Reply by Shanna Beauvais-Riley on July 27, 2009 at 6:53am

Wow, thanks so much, Illya, for liveroots.com!

I am a paid subscriber to Ancestry.com, so a great deal of my searching goes on in there. I also use Google Books search very often, especially when I was researching the Brandon family of Adams County, Mississippi.