Twelve Google Search Tips for Genealogists By Kimberly Powell In just three short years, Google has become the search engine of choice for millions of savvy Internet searchers. It is a special favorite among many of the genealogists I know, due to its ability to return relevant search results for genealogy and surname queries. Google is much more than just a tool for finding Web sites, however, and most people surfing for information on their ancestors barely scratch the surface of its full potential. If you know what you are doing, you can use Google to search within Web sites, locate photos of your ancestors, bring back dead sites, and track down missing relatives. Learn how to Google as you've never Googled before: 1) Search With a Focus Google has four important ground rules that you need to know for focused results: Use a plus sign before words which are absolutely critical to your search. Use a minus sign before words that you want to be excluded from the search. This is especially useful when searching for a surname with a common usage such as rice or one which is shared with a famous celebrity such as Harrison Ford (i.e. you would enter your search as ford -harrison to exclude results with the word 'harrison'). The rest of this article can be seen at http://genealogy.about.com/library/weekly/aa052902a.htm