GlobalGenSearch

Total 5.278.735.956 person records.
Contact: ahnen@familie-beuss.de

How did GlobalGenSearch come about?
Since the 1990s, I’ve been interested in genealogy. The internet has helped me search for sources since around the year 2000. It was tedious to send the same queries manually to each individual server.
Starting in 2007, I developed scripts for personal use that would send queries to various websites at the push of a button and collect the results. Since this could also help other genealogists, I decided to make this service publicly available.
Querying all major databases in parallel and displaying the results in a single, date-sorted list is a perfect use case for a meta search engine. It's a hobby of mine to continuously optimize the search engine. Feedback from some users has contributed significantly.

How does GlobalGenSearch work?
GlobalGenSearch fills in the online search forms of major genealogical databases in parallel.
(The same HTTP request that a regular user would send to a database like FamilySearch.)
The results come back as HTML pages. The personal data (first name, last name, birth date, death date, location) is extracted from those pages by the server and then displayed in a sorted list.
Anything that cannot be processed within one minute is ignored. However, repeating the search will continue where it left off and may return additional results.

Why does a "timeout" sometimes occur?
In some cases, a query returns more results than can be processed within the given time limit. When the time runs out, the search is stopped, and the results collected so far are shown.
Repeating the same search continues from where it left off. As long as not all search engines show a green checkmark, more results may still be available.

"Login": What advantages do I get?
With a login, twice as many searches can run in parallel. That means you get more results in the same amount of time.

How can I register for a login?
Registration with GlobalGenSearch is not necessary. You can simply log in using your existing Google account.

I know another genealogical search service. How can I add it?
I try to include only large search services (>300,000 records) in this meta search engine. There are several possibilities:

1. The new search service has more than 300,000 entries:
Please send me an email with the link. I will try to integrate it.

2. You have private genealogical data you’d like to publish:
There are already many services online where genealogical data can be published via GEDCOM file. Once they are published there, they can also be found through GlobalGenSearch.

3. You have a private website with genealogical data:
You can create a so-called GENDEX file with references to individual person pages and publish it, for example, at Family Tree Seeker (FTS). These results will also be found by GlobalGenSearch.

Which search engines cannot be included?
Some major search engines do not allow automated querying. Others have technical measures in place to block automated access.

Why are results missing from a search server even though a green checkmark is shown, and a direct search on the provider’s site yields results?
It’s possible that the provider’s search form or the structure of their result pages has changed. In such cases, I would appreciate an email to me so the GlobalGenSearch parser can be adjusted.

How can I search more precisely?
If additional information is known (first names, birth or death year), it can be entered into the search fields.
Location search only works if the same spelling appears in the result data. Searching by region does not work.
If a birth year is entered, plausible events without birth year will still be shown.
If a death year is entered, plausible events without death year will also be included.

Possible date inputs:
YYYY exact year
>YYYY from this year onward
yyyy-YYYY from year yyyy to year YYYY
DD.MM.YYYY more precise matches will be ranked higher

How can I support GlobalGenSearch?
All suggestions for improvement or tips about new genealogical search services are helpful to me.
Otherwise, a voluntary donation via PayPal helps cover server costs.