Searching with Mocavo

Searching with Mocavo

As you may, or may not, know; Mocavo is a type of Master Genealogy Search Site.  When you conduct a search of Mocavo their system goes out to many other genealogy web sites, searches them and returns the results to you.  The concept being that you don't have to do multiple site searches--they do that for you.  Obviously, they can only search free sites and/or the free portion of subscription sites.  

Today, I conducted a couple of searches using Mocavo and I have some comments.  My first complaint is that when you open documents that they find in response to a search, they do not identify the individual for whom you are searching within the document.  Thus, in a very lengthy document with many pages--you have to find the person.  I sent them a query on this just to be sure I didn't miss something; but I did it several times with the same results.  In the graphic below I searched for Robert Jones using the input date that I highlighted in yellow in the upper left.  The second document about " . . . The Olmsted Family. . . " is at least 400 pages long" and I have no idea how to find the Robert Jones reference(s).  Hopefully, the response to the query I sent to Mocavo will answer that question. 

The next query I made was for Erasmus Jones, as highlighted in yellow in the following screen capture.  The first document was taken from a Family Tree Maker family tree, and was quite detailed.  Fortunately, I knew enough about the family that I could find Erasmus fairly easily.  Again, however, his name was not highlighted nor was he in any other way identified.

The second document about the "Chambers Heritage"  was also a family tree from a PAF file.  Again, because I was familiar with the family tree, I was able to find Erasmus fairly quickly.  One nice feature to note about these searches.  If you have uploaded a GEDCOM of your family tree, you can attach the selected document to an individual in your tree by clicking on the "Save to Ancestor" which I have highlighted in yellow (I know you can't read it--sorry).

I have conducted other searches with Mocavo and had some very good results, so I don't want to discourage you about the difficulty of not having the information highlighted or otherwise identified in a lengthy document.  Perhaps Mocavo will provide a solution and I will be sure and pass it along.  

There is a free version of Mocavo, so I encourage you to give it a try, as it does consolidate your search efforts such that you are searching multiple sites with just a single input.

Note:  I have no affiliation with Mocavo, nor am I paid for advertising their product.  The comments are strictly my own opinions.