This is from the ever useful Tazewell County (IL) Genealogical & Historical Society electronic newsletter. I tried this site about a month ago. As Mike says, the big advantage is convenience. However, for those who aren't experienced in chosing the keywords for keyword searches it is heaven sent. No guarantee there is information about your ancestors on the web of course [particularly if they were on the same UFO some of mine came in on] and, of course, EVERYTHING you find on the web should be verified with a real source. Cheryl Rothwell HYPERLINK "mailto:[email protected]"[email protected] Logan County ILGenWeb HYPERLINK "http://www.rootsweb.com/~illogan"www.rootsweb.com/~illogan Central IL Regional Coordinator, ILGenWeb Clark, Downing, Harding, Lucas, et al New Genealogy Search Site Appears This new Web site proclaims: This free site will help you use Google™ to research your genealogy. It will create different Google searches using tips or "tricks" that will likely improve your search results. The different searches will give you many different ways of using Google to find ancestry information on the Internet. Just provide what you know about an ancestor and the site will set up the best searches for you, based on what you enter. The Genealogy Search Help site offers fill-in fields for the desired ancestor's first and last name, father's name, mother's name and spouse's name. Other fields include place of birth and place of death. Obviously, you fill in only the information you have and leave the remaining fields empty. I decided to try the site and compare it side-by-side with a regular search for the same names on Google. I first entered one of my "end of line" ancestors' names, a person whose parents are unknown to me. I only know his full name and place of death. The Genealogy Search Help site found several references to this person, but unfortunately, all those references were written by me, either in this newsletter or in online queries. I must say that I was not too surprised. I then picked a different ancestor, Samuel Harmon, born in 1709. This time I did have full information about his parents, spouse, and children. I simply used him as a test case. I entered his full name, spouse's name, and his place of death, but did not enter his parent's names. I wanted to see if the Genealogy Search Help site would find him. Indeed, it did. Several references to this person were identified, and most of them listed his parents' names. I attempted to conduct essentially the same search manually on Google. For those who are not familiar with Google's inner workings, this could be a challenge. Simply searching for Samuel Harmon resulted in 365,000 hits! For example, I found a present-day photographer in Ohio and a realtor in Virginia, both named Samuel Harmon. There were many others as well. I narrowed the search by typing "Samuel Harmon genealogy." This time I "only" received 22,000 hits. I next went to Google's advanced search page at HYPERLINK "http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en"http://www.google.com/advanced_ search?hl=en and experimented for a while with other terms, such as his wife's name and the town where he died. Indeed, I did eventually narrow the search to the point where almost all the "hits" were related to my ancestor, Samuel Harmon. So what does the Genealogy Search Help site offer that Google does not? The answer is one word: convenience. The Genealogy Search Help site does not find any data that you cannot find by yourself on Google. However, it does help you quickly narrow your focus in what would otherwise be an ocean of data. This service is especially good for Google novices who have not yet learned to use Google's more advanced features. I will caution you that you still will want to conduct searches the old-fashioned way, both on Google and elsewhere. The new Genealogy Search Help site is a convenience, but not a definitive tool. If you do not find your ancestor using the new search tool, try again and again elsewhere. Webmasters will note that there is a capability to build ancestor search pages into your own Web site by cutting and pasting a few lines of HTML code. The Genealogy Search Help site is supported by advertising, and there seem to plenty of ads to go around. You can experiment with this new service at: HYPERLINK "http://www.genealogy-search-help.com/"http://www.genealogy-search-help.com/ --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.642 / Virus Database: 410 - Release Date: 3/24/2004