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One strategy I use from time to time in my genealogy research is a simple Google search.

I’ll search for the name of one of my ancestors – both first and last names or first, middle, and last names. Of course, I put the name in parentheses, so Google searches for that exact name or phrase, rather than those individual names or words.

As you might imagine, this strategy works best for unusual names.

Often I’ll find references to present-day individuals who have the same name as my ancestor, or I’ll find links to genealogy discussion boards, family trees, or other family history sites.

Sometimes I hit pay dirt.

Last night was one of those nights.

I searched for my ancestor “Mary Caroline FINCHER.” This led me to many sites dealing with the GENTLE family. Mary had married Pinkney GENTLE after the death or disappearance of her first husband, James Newton McGINNIS.

Even though I descend from one of the McGINNIS children, I spent some time looking at the GENTLE information and found a fascinating tidbit.

Leander Colbert GENTLE, son of Pickney GENTLE and his first wife, was the father of 29 children. 29 children?

Further searches on the Internet for Lee GENTLE led me to the following birth notice in the 21 Feb. 1927 issue of Time Magazine.

“Born. To Lee Gentle, 65, ‘champion father of Georgia,’ a daughter, in Atlanta, Ga. Mr. Gentle was recently congratulated by Congress and President Coolidge on his record of 28 children. He now has 29.”

This isn’t my line, of course, but it’s fascinating nevertheless.

On a different occasion I ran a search for another ancestor and discovered that someone was giving a speech in Virginia about him. I e-mailed the contact person for the group, and she forwarded my e-mail to the speaker – a distant cousin as it turned out. (I’m not using her name or the name of my ancestor, since I didn’t get permission from her to share this story.)

In any event, we corresponded for a time and exchanged information. The big prize for me was a digital copy of a photo of our ancestors – the ancestor my cousin was speaking about and his wife.

And, I learned that her father is writing a book about our ancestor. I can’t wait to see it.

All that, from a simple Google search.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Fincher genealogy, Georgia genealogy, McGinnis genealogy, genealogy research tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.