This is a forwarded message from a reader: you need to u nderstand quote marks as in the detroit query where you received no hits... the quotes tell google to find those specific words adjacent to each other. That is why you might get a jazillion hits with pat in tucson but only those results that are valid it you use "pat in tucson" in the case of Etm's "chicken" genealogy The logic is that it is a name, a noun specifically and those places where chicken is an adverb or an adjective are totally skipped. The presence of genealogy is the logic where somewhere on the page or result, is genealogy, even if not specific to the location on that page where chicken is found... in the case of upper and lower case, always regardless of what is proper english, use lower case. Lower case will deliver upper and lower wherease it is likely that an upper case statement will NOT deliver the lower case results. carots are a nuisance and what you are trying to do is bracket as in code. It does nothing but confuse people. the only thing that <> are valid for nowadays are in email addresses... period. in the case of Wheeldon murders Detroit 1957.... Detroit is used by itself because there arent too many DETROITS in the world but it perhaps it was in a town that exists in several places in the world such as..... washington one would have said Wheeldon murders "washington dc" 1957 or Wheeldon murders "washington il" 1957 if in the case one was not sure of the year, then wheeldon murders detroit numrange:1955..1965 (NOTICE 2, not 3 or 1 but TWO dots here and yes, it is important) which then would deliver the results of the act and then any subsequent trial/court information (it did result in 197 results...) however, then comes those nuisance results... like christopher the choreographer so the quesry should be changed ot wheeldon murders detroit numrange:1955..1965 -christopher (notice the dash has no space between istelf and the next word..., if yu you the space, then the machine will assume that the - and christopher are both part of the results you wish.) (now we are down to 59 results... but lets just say that one of the murdered WAS a christopher, then instead use -choreographer. One error in the whole of this is the single word MURDERS it should be murder NO S... Google will look for what you have entered but will not make the word shorter... entering in murder will get you murder AND MURDERS.... On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 1:47 PM, Kith-n-Kin <Kith-n-Kin@cox.net> wrote: > Would it be helpful to develop to have a pro forma ("formula") method  for > writing search phrases in our emails? > > I tend to use the "sideways" carets < > and put the phrase, complete with > any " " in the middle. > > Elaine's example would be: > > < "chicken" genealogy > > > It doesn't matter whether or not someone copies the carets into the search > phrase, Google ignores them. > > My Chicken quest was perfect. Got 27 million+ results, the first page was > all accurate until you get to "Can you read a Drunk Chicken?" which has to > do with reading Japanese writing while researching Japanese genealogy, so it > still was really correct. > > Not so with "Wheeldon murders Detroit 1957" -- which gets no results. > > And it avoids people from having to explain how to copy the search phrase. > > I use the <> for other things that aren't exactly "parenthetical remarks", > such as my sideways comments  <G> or <grin>. > > I don't know if Elaine used the parens on hers, ("chicken"" genealogy) , but > that worked just the same way. > > Ideas? Anything that avoids " " and Google doesn't account for would work, I > suppose. > > Pat > In Tucson > > -----Original Message----- > From: gen-newbie-bounces@rootsweb.com > [mailto:gen-newbie-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of List Administration > Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2011 10:04 AM > To: Fred Powell, Sr. > Subject: [GN] Googling suggestions > > Just get comfortable talking to google, ignore all > the discussions you might have seen about boolean > searches or the like. Google is friendly, and it > won't bite if you don't give it the information it > needs, it won't even chastise you if you give it > too much. It will try to answer, and if you don't > like the results, try again, a bit differently. > > Some things require serious stuff like putting > quotes around a surname. I did my name recently, > ("chicken"" genealogy) and it finally restricted > it to family research instead of giving me a fried > chicken website, chicken farms, etc., among other > hits. > > For the Wheeldon case, I think I asked for > "Wheeldon murders Detroit 1957" (no quotes, just > typed that in the search box) and it returned > the newspaper article as #1 hit result. > > Elaine > >