Google Brings Me Back to School

Ain't it amazing what you can find online? While playing around with Google Book Search today, I found this—a floor plan of the first school I (and my father and my brother and sister) ever attended.

Despite the title, the report is actually for the year ending Dec. 31, 1891. The school was built in the summer and fall of 1889, and was expanded to three rooms over the years. The building now houses Greenwood's town office, and is also the first place I ever voted against anyone named George Bush.

As a bonus, Google included this image of the book-scanner's fingers. It's good to know that they use protection.

Her Claim to Fame Is Her Name

Author Emma Darwin lives in the long shadow of her great-great-grandfather, and in the somewhat shorter shadow of his wife, for whom she was named.

When I checked in for the writing course the administrator ran his finger down the clipboard list. 'No relation to Charles Darwin, then?' I've had a lifetime's training in family manners, so I smiled modestly. 'Well, yes, actually. He's my grandfather's grandfather.'

His finger began to tremble. 'No! But I've actually shaken your hand,' he gasped. 'Charles Darwin's descendant! Oh my God!' He began to hyperventilate and had to sit down. I stood there, trying to keep smiling.

In the odd, blank year between the champagne corks popping to celebrate the deal and my book actually hitting the bookshelves, I Googled myself occasionally, as most new authors do. But I don't think most new authors are consistently upstaged in the Google rankings by their own great-great-grandmother. [Link]

UnGoogleable Woman Outs Herself

From Wired News:

'UnGoogleables' Hide From Search

By Ann Harrison

02:00 AM Oct. 03, 2005 PT

Geri Agalia doesn't appear to leave less of a data trail than most Americans. She has a phone in her name, a bank account, utility bills, a mortgage and a credit card. But the stay-at-home mom and part-time student is among a select and ever-shrinking group of the digitally privileged -- her name does not appear on Google.

"I just value my privacy," says Agalia, who lives in San Diego. "And I think that the government and corporations already know too much about people for the benefit of marketing."

[snip]

Agalia discovered that even her own family could be a Google information leak. A distant relative posted Agalia's name on a genealogy website, along with the names of her husband and son. When Agalia's husband was deployed in the first Navy battle group to send Tomahawk missiles into Iraq, she said he was told by his commanders to keep a low profile in case he or his family were targeted by terrorists. Agalia's relative agreed to take their names off the site and she accomplished the rare feat of having her name vanish from Google listings.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

I predict that "Geri Agalia" will soon be well represented in Google search results. And she won't be able to blame the genealogists.

Update (Oct. 5, 2005): Geri Agalia is now Googleable.

Ancestors by Gooooogle

There is no better way to peer into the hidden corners of the web than to type a query into Google. But Google's utility to genealogists depends on the rarity of the terms searched for.

Take my hometown of Greenwood, Maine. There are 86 populated places named Greenwood in the United States (not including variants and trailer parks), and three Greenwood Counties. Pennsylvania alone has three Greenwood Townships. There are Greenwoods in British Columbia, Ontario, and Queensland, Australia. And it is a fairly common American surname (1276th in 1990). Searching for "Greenwood" is pointless: I have to search for "Greenwood ME" or "Greenwood Maine" to produce useful results. (Try Easy Google Genealogy Searcher for some other good tips.)

On the other hand, take the nearby town of Dixfield, Maine. Dixfield's claim to fame has resulted in the adoption of a slogan: "The Only One." It is the only Dixfield in the world, and far easier to research than Greenwood. Searching for "Dixfield" in Google (or searching for "dleifxiD" in elgooG) yields 81,200 results—almost all of which would be found relevant to the town. Compare this to search results for the smallish towns neighboring Dixfield, which include Carthage (1,670,000 results), Peru (47,600,000), and Mexico (168,000,000).

The same problem applies to surnames. My own name, Dunham, provides good search results, but try searching for surnames like "House," "Thing," "Work," "Small," or (God forbid) "Bush." Including both first and last name in the query will sometimes work, but not if the person searched for is Miles Long—a settler of Buckfield, Maine, who does not merit 768,000 Google results.

Often, though, a given name can save an individual from obscurity. That is the case for an early resident of Paris, Maine, who bore the most common surname in America: Smith. His Christian name? Merodachbaladan.