Origins.net launches 'the search engine for genealogy'.
2 September 2002
Origins.net (
www.origins.net), the major source of key Scottish and English genealogical
data on the web, is pleased to announce a new service, Origin Search
(
http://www.originsearch.com).
Origin Search is a specialized web search engine for genealogy and costs only $5 for 24
hours unlimited use. Using search criteria designed specifically for family history
research, Origin Search addresses a major difficulty in genealogical research: how to find
nuggets of information of real value to your research which may be buried deep within
millions of web pages. There are many hundreds of millions of genealogical records
scattered around the world-wide web, but even the best general purpose web search engines,
such as Google or MSN search, will not find more than a fraction of these records or will
require manually filtering a huge amount of irrelevant results. Origin Search allows users
to locate ancestors' information using structured searches based upon events from
marriages to mentions in ships' passenger lists, with grouping of results by region,
and with a proprietary mechanism for retrieving alternate name spellings, NameXT. Unlike
many other genealogy servic!
es, including Origins.net's own English Origins, Origin Search is not limited to
specific collections of genealogical databases or to a small collection of web pages but
locates genealogical information over the entire web.
Origins.net founder and CEO, Ian Galbraith said: "We believe that Origin Search is a
primary example of the future direction that the search engine industry will follow. Many
search engines are beginning to offer specialist services, such as news search, in
response to users' needs. Genealogy is the second biggest use of the Internet but to
date there has not been a "Google for genealogy". For less than the price of the
bus fare to the local library, family history enthusiasts have access to one of the most
sophisticated search tools in the world, from their own home".
The launch version of Origin Search locates records containing over 340 million names.
Searching for names in unstructured data
A researcher may be looking for records referring specifically to the immigration of
someone into the United States; a traditional search engine would return all mentions of
this name from genealogical information of any sort to a basketball score from a team
player. Origin Search only returns information which is relevant to family history
research, and regardless of how the name appears on the web page - eg "John
Smith", "Smith, John" or "J. B. Smith".
Searching for ancestors has long been a notoriously difficult task since people have often
used abbreviations and spelling variations or changed their name when emigrating to
another country such as the United states. Origin Search includes another unique and
particularly powerful feature: NameXT - the most powerful surname variant search tool
available. This allows searchers to find far more records of possible interest than would
be possible any other way.
NameXT
NameX, a key features of Origin Search, is one of the most powerful and sophisticated
search tools available on the Web.
Searching using the NameX feature locates a wider range of genuine variants of a
person's name than any other software. NameX is vastly superior to the widely used
Soundex, which is really not well adapted for searching for name variants. For example,
in a list of 55 million surnames NameX identified 147 highly plausible variants for the
surname Wilson; Soundex identified 1185 "variants", of which nearly 90% are
unlikely in the extreme (eg Wahlgamath, Whilesmith, Willigenburg).
NameX works both with surnames and with forenames, and allows forename diminutives often
being quite different from the "real" forename. For example, searching on
Margaret will also find Marg, Mgt, Marg't, Maggie, Peggy, etc.
Users pay a licence fee for use of the Origin Search software: a 24 hour licence costs $5
(£3.20), a 14 day licence $15 USD (£9.60). Users search as much as they like during the
licence period. Our free Irish Origins (
www.irishorigins.com) service is based upon the
same software and functionality as the new service. Prospective users of Origin Search can
check thoroughly the functionality and quality of service they will receive before needed
to commit to any payment for Origin Search. (This is in contrast to Origins.net's
premium pay-per-view services - eg English Origins - where payment relates to the amount
and value of the information retrieved.)
Origin Search versus other search engines
A 'name only' search carried out on a search engine such as Google may return a
large number of web pages, many of which will be irrelevant to genealogists.
For example, searching the surname John Gollop using Google returns 12 web pages
containing this name. But only one of these pages relates to genealogical data
(
www.execulink.com/~fbax/FamTree/JoanSmith.htm). Searching the same name with Origin
Search returns 17 pages, all from genealogical web sites and containing information
relevant to family history researchers.
.
About
Origins.net
Origins.net's business is the provision of high quality genealogy services on the
Internet. Founded 1997,
Origins.net has been the pioneer of pay-per-view web databases:
Scots Origins, launched 1998, was the first service providing Internet access to
governmental genealogical records, and was the first pay-per-view service of any kind on
the web; English Origins (in association with the Society of Genealogists) followed in
2001.
Origins.net has a two-fold strategy: to work with the custodians of valuable and
unique genealogical material to make their material publicly accessible via the web; and
to develop specialised search services to simplify searching for genealogical data on the
web generally. In contrast to most "dot com" companies,
Origins.net was
profitable from the start.
Praise for
Origins.net
"an absolutely central resource for all genealogists..." (The Good Web Guide):
"[Scots Origins is] a model consumer website with clear instructions and an excellent
demo." (The Herald)
"I REALLY like your new service, Origin Search, and particularly the drop down name
area, which tells me what names are being searched. Soundex never seems to work for me,
but this is great. I also appreciate the breakdown of hits into geographic area. Thanks
for this great tool" (Origin Search user)
"I was impressed with the speed to view 470 pages for one name and timespan. This new
service will be of particular benefit to our American cousins and anyone who is new to
searching for their family's history" (Origin Search user)
Contact:
Jane Hewitt
Origins.net
12 Greenhill Rents
Farringdon
London
EC1M 6BN
Tel: +44 (0)20 7251 6117
pr(a)origins.net
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