How to CustomizeGoogle Chrome Search Engines
for Genealogy

You've probably used the Google Chrome address bar to perform a search, typing directly into that area at the top of the browser. But did you know you can customize it for genealogy searches?

This might sound like an intimidating or technical process, but don't worry—if you can copy and paste, then you can do this. Just follow this easy, step-by-step guide!

About Search Engines

A typical search engine (like Google) consists of two parts:

1. a form where you enter the terms you want to search for, and
2. a results page with a special URL (address) where you see the results of your search.

A little-known secret is that you don't actually need the first part, the form, to do searches; you really only need the second part, the special URL.

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to add these special URLs to Google Chrome to make it awesome for genealogy research.

Step 1: Open Google Chrome and go to "Manage Search Engines"

On a Mac:

1. Open Google Chrome
2. Click on "Google Chrome" at the top left, then choose "Preferences"
3. Click "Search Engines" from the menu at the left
4. Click "Manage Search Engines"

On a PC:

1. Open Google Chrome
2. Click on the hamburger menu (the 3 horizontal lines), then choose "Settings"
3. Click "Search Engines" from the menu at the left
4. Click "Manage Search Engines"

In this window, you'll see a few default search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!.

Step 2: Add your own search engine

1. Find the section called "Other Search Engines", which is below the list of default search engines.
2. Click the "Add" button on the right.
3. You should see a new window with three fields: "Search engine", "Keyword", and "URL with %s in place of query".

Step 3: Name the search engine

Fill in the name of the website for which you are creating a shortcut. This can be any name you choose, such as "FamilySearch Wiki" or "Archive.org".

As an example, let's use "FamilySearch Wiki".

Step 4: Choose a keyword

In the "Keyword" field, type a shortcut that you'll use for searching with this search engine. This is a prefix that comes before your other search terms to trigger a search on this particular search engine. It could be as short as 2-3 letters. Use something you can remember and type easily.

For our example, let's use "fw".

Step 5: Fill in the URL

Leave this tab for a moment and open a new tab. Open up the site for which you're creating a search engine shortcut. On that site, use the site's search engine to search for something (anything). For example, we could go to the FamilySearch Wiki and search for "Provo". On the next page, where you see search results, the URL should look something like this:

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Special:Search?search=Provo&go=Search&ns0=1&ns4=1&ns12=1&ns14=1&ns102=1&ns108=1&ns200=1&ns3100=1&ns3109=1

Select and copy this URL. (Select it with your mouse, right-click on it, then choose "Copy".)

Go back to your first tab, where you're adding the search engine, and paste the URL into the 3rd field.

Before you hit Enter, you need to make one change! Look for the word you searched, e.g. "Provo" and change it to %s. This is a placeholder. It's the "slot" where you want things you type to go. Now your URL will look like this:

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Special:Search?search=%s&go=Search&ns0=1&ns4=1&ns12=1&ns14=1&ns102=1&ns108=1&ns200=1&ns3100=1&ns3109=1

Bonus tip: Many times, though not always, if you delete all the gobblygook after the placeholder, everything will still work, and it makes your URL look much cleaner. In this case, I'll delete everything after the %s and now the URL looks like this:

https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Special:Search?search=%s

Step 6: Review

To recap, the three fields are now filled out like this:

You can now click "Add".

Step 7: Try out your new search engine

In the address bar of Chrome, type in the keyword you chose for your search engine, e.g. "fw", then a space. Then type in the term(s) you want to search for, and hit Enter.

The search results will pop up without you ever going to the website!

Examples

Here are the examples I used in the video. To get started, Open Google Chrome preferences or settings, then go to "Search engine", then "Manage search engines", and click "Add", then paste in the values below.