Week 8 FamilySearch and Online Catalogs

FamilySearch and Online Catalogs

A compass is an amazing tool. No matter where you are, it shows you which way is north. If you know how to use a compass, it can help you navigate to your destination. In genealogy, there is a similar tool to help you find your way to the records you need: online catalogs. Online catalogs will tell you what records are held by a library or archive and are sometimes linked to digital images of the original source. 

Online Catalogs

You are lucky to live in a time when you can access vast amounts of genealogical information online. Billions of original documents can be viewed with the click of a mouse and billions more are available in archives and libraries. Some documents are not available online for copyright reasons, budgetary restrictions, or the inclinations of the organization. Even though you can’t view those records online, you can still find them in the online catalog so that you know what records are available in that library or archive. This information is invaluable as you create your research plan.

Search Categories

Online catalogs can be searched in many ways. Most library catalogs can be searched by the following:

• Author

• Title

• Subject 

• Keyword

Archive catalogs tend to be more specialized, but usually can be searched by the following:

• Keyword

• Time period

• Reference

  • A library gives each book a unique call number. An archive gives each artifact a unique number called a reference. Some archive websites allow you search by the reference.  

Search Strategies

Sometimes when you search a catalog, names or places might be spelled in different ways. Fortunately, you can use a wildcard search to help you look for variants. There are several different wildcards, but these two are the most common:

• A question mark (?) can replace exactly one character.

  • Example: Searching for "Jo?n" tells the search engine to look for both "John" and "Joan."

• An asterisk (*) can replace of any number of characters.

  • Example: Searching for "J*n" tells the search engine to look for a name which begins with J and ends with n. Therefore, your search results will include "John," "Joan," and "Juan," as well as "Johnson," "Jensen," and "Jackson."

    • What are other examples of names that would be included in this search?