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Search Engines:

Search engines allow you to look through the Internet for a particular topic, location or name which you are researching. It's like having a set of encyclopedias -- or several sets! -- at your fingertips. Just type in the word(s) you are interested in and the search engine will show you all the documents that it finds where those words occur.

Three types of search engines are listed here -- genealogical, geographical and general. Mention overlap between categories.

Genealogy Search Engines:

Search engines in this category are specifically genealogical in nature and can include, for example, surnames, genealogical websites, documents, research papers, etc.

~ http://www.genealogyportal.com -- Genealogy Portal allows you to type in a surname or a topic and will then show you a list of sites where that name or topic is mentioned. If you have a personal website about your own family research, it's a good idea to have it included on this site.

~ http://www.gencircles.com/ -- GenCircles website where you can search through a database of millions of surnames which have been submitted by others and you can contact those submitters if you want to. You can also contribute your own genealogy to the site via GEDCOM files. This site includes a Global Tree, Clubs (members can share or chat with each other) and also a Matching feature.

~ http://www.gendex.com/ -- GENDEX WWW Genealogical Index which contains "hundreds of World Wide Web databases containing genealogical data for over twelve million individuals, and gives you the ability to locate and view data of interest to you on any of these databases, without having to go and visit each of the databases separately." You can search through both a surname index and a database index.

~ http://www.gensource.com/ifoundit/index.htm -- GenSource>I Found It! site, a genealogy search engine which allows you to browse by category, common thread or in the archives. Includes a directory of genealogy related sites. If you have a personal site, you can add it here too.

~ http://genconnect.rootsweb.com/genbbs.cgi?search -- GenConnect Global Surname Search (on Rootsweb site) where you can search for surnames by country or worldwide.

~ http://surhelp.rootsweb.com/srchall.html -- Surname Helper: Search for a Surname (on Rootsweb site) which is a "surname engine for queries and surname registrations posted on a variety of genealogy sites". You can choose by country and category of records. Includes USGenWeb and WorldGenWebsites as well as GenConnect boards.

~ http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/ -- GenConnect Boards: Connecting Families through Genealogy (on Rootsweb) is a "bulletin boards system......to post queries and share your data". There are Location, Surname and Special Projects boards, "all....fully searchable".

Geographical Search Engines:

The following search engines allow you to select specific countries to search. They are listed in no particular order.

~ http://www.worldgenweb.org -- WorldGenWeb: Connecting the World through Genealogy. Described as an "on-line data repository for queries, family histories, and source records as well as being resource centre to identify other on-line databases and resources to assist researchers". All kinds of interesting features on this site which includes: Africa, Asia, Baltic Sea, Canada, Carribbean, Central America, Europe, Mediterranean, Mexico, Middle East, Pacific, South America, UK and USA.

~ http://www.geneanet.org -- GeneaNet Genealogical Database Network "a universal register of all the world's genealogical resources, whether Net-based or not, and whether free or fee-paying." Has features such as Search by Country (many choices here), Fast Search and Advanced Search. Includes listing of many genealogically-oriented "news" items.

~ http://www.metafetcher.com -- Metafetcher claims to be the "biggest on the web" (with) "over 300 search engines". Although not genealogy-oriented, it has an international scope -- you can choose searches specific for geographical locations such as UK, France, Netherlands and Germany as well as New Zealand, Australia and Canada.

General Search Engines:

These are not specifically focussed on genealogy but they can still be useful for research. Documents found will be of all different types -- including some genealogy -- but will also include items in categories such as business, advertising, scientific, medicine, etc.

~ http://www.alltheweb.com -- All The Web has a language selection feature -- that is, you can select a search in Any Language or choose one of almost fifty other languages, including French, German, Dutch, etc., as well as English. Also has Customize Search and Advanced Search features.

~ http://www.google.com -- Google is a basic search engine which claims to search over one billion other web pages for information.

~ www.searchitall.com -- SearchItAll claims that it "puts the entire online world at your fingertips".  

~ http://www.dogpile.com -- Dogpile promises "all results, no mess". After typing in a keyword, you ask Dogpile to "Fetch" the information. Offers choice of categories and places to search. Also uses other search engines (such as GoTo, Infoseek, Google, Open Directory, RealNames, Lycos, Altavista, Yahoo, etc.) to obtain information so that you can pick the one which gives you the most useful results.

~ http://www.monstercrawler.com/ -- Monster Crawler: The Monstrous Search Tool lists a choice of search categories and incorporates other search engines such as Yahoo, Google, WebCrawler, GoTo, FindWhat, Kanoodle and 7Search.

~ http://www.northernlights.com -- Northern Lights search engine also offers such things as news headlines, stock market quotes and a variety of other things.

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