My Jose Mier search keeps going. I’m documenting the tools and tips I use the make it easier for me—and possibly for you if you’re doing the same kind of genealogy research I am.
My latest revelation came when I was doing another Google search and typed “Jose Mier” in the search box. Now, for you seasoned Googlers out there you know Google often returns a list of suggested keywords for your search.
If you type in “toothpaste” you may get a suggestion list for things like “toothpaste brands,” “toothpaste on pimple,” etc. That’s because a lot of other people have looked for these keywords and Google in its infinite wisdom think these things may be what you’re looking for. Or, Google may just finish typing your search term for you using autocomplete which you’re free to use or just keep typing your own search term.
In my case, the search term “Jose Mier” doesn’t get a lot of searches (just guessing) so the autocomplete/suggestions kind of didn’t happen. However, when I altered my search and started looking for just the last name with the term “surname Mier” Google suggested “latino surname Mier.”
So simple yet so profound. On my own I had searched for “Mier name” or “Mier surname” but I had to sift through all the irrelevant results that these returned. There are other Miers out there but those names may be Anglo-Saxon, Dutch or Yiddish and those don’t apply to me and my search.
Now that I’ve had this revelation, I am going to use Google’s autocomplete more often as well as take a look at the alternatives Google shows at the bottom of its search results pages. Yes, I know this is not a big revelation to lots of you out there who are more seasoned Googlers, but for anyone else doing genealogy research, I offer this as a time-saving tip that can speed up your searches.
