Genealogy Hack: Firefox Smart Keywords

Firefox has a neat feature called Smart Keywords that allows you to quickly search databases from your address bar. Let's say I want quick access to RootsWeb Town Search. I right-click in the "Town Name" search field, and select Add a Keyword for this Search from the menu that appears.

I'll give the bookmark the name "Town Search," and use "town" as my keyword.

I can now type, say, town paducah in my address bar and immediately be taken to my search results at RootsWeb.

One drawback for genealogists is that Smart Keywords accepts only one search term. Most of our searches require two or more fields with distinct values (e.g. first and last name). But there are many sites I use regularly where this method does come in handy, including Google Book Search and News Archive Search.

This is a new irregular feature here at The Genealogue. A "genealogy hack" is a tip or trick that solves a specific problem and increases one's productivity as a genealogist, whether online or out in the real world. If you have a hack to share, submit it here or send it to hacks [at] genealogue.com.

Viva Zotero!

Zotero is my new favorite Firefox extension. Formerly called "Firefox Scholar," it allows you to bookmark and take snapshots of webpages, and to capture citation info from Amazon.com, Google Books, ProQuest, and library catalogs (including, but not limited to, those listed here). Zotero is supposed to "sense" when you're reading a book description or article on the web and extract the bibliographical data for you. Just click on an icon in the location bar and the item will be added to your library. You can also add items manually, and affix notes, attachments, and tags to them. When it's time to publish, you can easily create a bibliography of sources in one of three citation styles.

This free product is beta software, so expect some hiccups. There are also limitations (e.g. only a few major newspapers are included among the compatible sites). Zotero requires that you use the latest version of Firefox, which makes this a great excuse to upgrade or switch browsers.