Sometimes, to catch more fish, you have to cast a wider net. This tool helps you find potential matches on a site of your choice by taking the name you supply and using Google to find potential matches to similar, but not-quite-the-same patterns on that web site. This could include spelling variants or cases where the transcribed data contains common typos. It's a bit like Soundex, but fuzzier. For example, if you're searching for "Jacob," it might find him in some data where his name was accidentally recorded as "Jakob."
Please understand that by design this search technique tends to produce numerous low-quality results. So expect to sift through a lot of junk. But it does provide a relatively simple way to find matches that might otherwise go undetected. And when you're stuck at a brick wall, it's one more sledgehammer in your toolbox.
The default setting searches the MIGenWeb Jackson site, but you can change this to another site or directory of your choosing by changing the value in this field.
Any text works here. You could enter just the surname, or first and last name. Remember that this search returns many results, so shorter, simpler search text is advantageous.
By default, the name you supplied is not included in the variants the tool searches for because you've probably searched for that name dozens of times. The whole purpose of this tool is to help find variations of that name. But if you really want to include it, check this box. Be aware that doing so will likely increase the number of matching results significantly.
Use this feature to copy the expanded set of search terms so you can paste them into some other search engine like Bing.com. Only certain engines support this technique, so results will vary.
