USING THE SLPL CATALOG TO DO GENEALOGY SEARCHES

Let’s assume that you are researching ancestors who lived in Madison County, Illinois. How should you go about finding materials in our collection that might aid in that endeavor?

You can find our online catalog here. Click on Catalog, and you will be taken to a page that has a navigation bar with these fields (each has a drop-down menu) near the top of the page:

• Everything     All Fields     [Search box]     Search     Advanced Search

Everything allows you these choices:

• Library Search
• Downloadables

 All Fields allows you these choices:

• Author
• Subject
• ISBN
• Title
• Local Call Number

Search allows a Basic Search. You can then:

Limit Search Results

• Books
• Serials
• Other
• Electronic Resources
• Microform    

You can also opt to do an Advanced Search, which allows you these options:

Find items that have:

• All these words:
• This exact phrase:

Don’t show items that have:  

• These unwanted words:

Additional limits:

• Format type
• Language
• Preferred pick-up      

Doing a Basic Search for genealogy gives these results (search terms are in italics):

• Everything>>>All Fields>>>genealogy----- 15,260 results
• Everything>>>Subject>>>>genealogy------ 10,074 results
• Everything>>>Title>>>>>>genealogy------- 1,155 results

These results tell us that changes in drop-down menu choices can in fact bring about major changes in our search results.

Let’s try to locate some items that may help us research those Madison County, Illinois ancestors (remember, case does not matter in our search terms).

• Everything>>>All Fields>>>madison county illinois genealogy----- 17 results
• Everything>>>Subjects>>>madison county illinois genealogy----- 13 results

As you can see, it’s probably best when searching for genealogical materials relating to a particular county to stick with Everything and All Fields.

Changing one of our search terms can change our search results:

• Everything>>>All Fields>>>madison county illinois genealogy----- 17 results
• Everything>>>All Fields>>>madison county illinois history----- 10 results
• Everything>>>All Fields>>>madison county illinois maps----- 6 results
• Everything>>>All Fields>>>madison county illinois biography----- 5 results
• Everything>>>All Fields>>>madison county illinois family----- 3 results
• Everything>>>All Fields>>>madison county illinois newspapers----- 2 results

You can also do this more general search:

• Everything>>>All Fields>>>”madison county” illinois ----- 83 results

As you can see, it fetches more search results, but includes many reports of government offices that may not be of interest to the genealogist.

By the way, search terms provided above can also be used when searching Worldcat.org,  should you choose to cast a wider net (Worldcat.org searches the catalogs of 10,000 libraries worldwide, including SLPL).