The Family Tree
By Terence L. Day
Terence L. Day, genealogist and journalist, is on the Washington State University faculty. He welcomes e-mail at genealogy@moscow.com, or regular mail in care of the Tri-City Herald City newsroom, P.O. Box 2608, Tri-Cities, WA 99302-2608.
Finding Uncle Bob easier on Internet
This column was published April 28, 1996
The Internet is making looking for needles in haystacks easy.
Well, easier.
I recently stumbled upon "Switchboard," a site that can save you time and money if you're trying to do "living" genealogy, that is if you're looking for living relatives.
Let's say you're trying to find your mother's half-brother, Robert Edward Jacobs, who hasn't been heard from for 20 years. You think he is alive, but have no idea where he lives.
Long-distance information isn't very helpful. First, the operator will insist on knowing what city he lives in, which is a tall order if you don't even know the state. Second, the phone company charges 75 cents for every inquiry. At least mine does.
Third, telephone companies are getting evasive or downright cranky about giving out mailing addresses. Callers sometimes have to resort to ruses to get an address.
Many people are solving this problem by buying the nation's telephone directories on compact discs. That works, but why shell out for the nation's telephone listings when all that data now is available on-line?
If you have an Internet connection just jump on the World Wide Web and go to Switchboard. It gives you a "search engine" to help you find the person for whom you are looking.
You can speed the search if you know the city or state. But Switchboard doesn't care if you don't know whether Uncle Bob is living in Hawaii, Florida or Maine. Just put in the name, wait a few seconds and Switchboard will give you a list of possibilities.
With common names the list may be quite long. So long it may be worthless. If the name is uncommon enough, it might find just one in the nation.
This may seem easy, but there are limitations and challenges. For instance, Switchboard gives only listed telephone numbers.
Also, finding your Uncle Bob could present another problem. Is his telephone listed as Robert E. Jacobs, Robert Jacobs, R.E. Jacobs, Bob Jacobs or perhaps R. Jacobs?
But this shouldn't throw you too badly, as genealogists are accustomed to this predicament.
Women's names are a more difficult matter. I haven't figured out how the database handles married women's names. Obviously if a woman's name isn't listed in the directory, you won't find it. But I'm having trouble finding married women's names even when they are listed.
For instance, our telephone is listed as "Terence L. and Ruth Day," but my searches leave me Ruthless. You can find me either as "Terence L." or "Terence," but not as "Terence L. and Ruth Day," or "Terence L. & Ruth Day."
Incidentally, if you type in Ron for Ronald or Rob for Robert, plus a last name you will get any listing for Rons and Ronalds, including listings both with and without middle initials.
The directory lists the Rons first, then the Ronalds. Similarly, it will list the first name only listings and then the same first name with an initial or middle name. This is handy.
For example, five Terence Days have listed telephones in the United States; two Terence Days, a Terence C., a Terence J., and me.
Spelling isn't just important. It's vital.
While there are five Terence Days with listed phones, there are 10 Terrence Days and three Terance Days. If you don't know the proper spelling, you'll have to try every imaginable one and hope your imagination is good enough.
Want to give Switchboard a try? Connect to your World Wide Web navigator and use http:// www.switchboard.com/bin/ cigaqa.com for the electronic address.
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