Advanced Search Made Easy
Many articles that discuss Google searches quickly start talking about using AND functions, OR functions, plus (+) signs and minus (-) signs to help optimize your search results. Our advice is that unless you enjoy Boolean logic or want to code your searches like a computer programmer then fine go ahead and follow this route. For the rest of us who have a life, there is a much easier and much more powerful way to do advanced genealogy searches with Google. Simply go directly to the Advanced Search page that is available at every Google search site. Do this by going to the Google site for the country of your choice. Instead of entering your search term in the box, click on the small link to the right of the input box that is labelled “Advanced Search”. This will take you directly to the Advanced Search page.
This image shows you where to click to get to the Google "Advanced Search" page.
Note: Google has recently made this page more difficult to find. Try typing <Google Advanced search> into a Google search page and it will direct you to the correct page.
And this is what the Advanced Search page looks like.
The Advanced Search page is so powerful that we recommend that you perform all your genealogy searches on this page. Get to know this page well. It will quickly become your best friend in searching for your ancestors. In fact, the rest of this article assumes that you are working from the Advanced Search page of Google for all your genealogy searches.
