PUBMED

This time, for the medical database PUBMED's search, I decided to search for articles about how genetic tests can impact genealogy research.  I had to search a few times to get the results I wanted.  I typed in “Genealogy” as my first term, and the search box offered me the term “Genetic Genealogy.”  

This brought up almost 43,000 hits, and the first few were not promising.  I then added the word “Ancestry” to the search field.  That cut down the number of hits to 122.  The first five were still not exactly what I was looking for, so I added the search terms “family” and “history.”  This gave me 13 hits, and the first five, and especially the second one, were exactly what I was looking for on the database.  My final search strategy was - ("genetics"[Subheading] OR "genetics"[All Fields] OR "genetics"[MeSH Terms]) AND ancestry[All Fields] AND ("genealogy and heraldry"[MeSH Terms] OR ("genealogy"[All Fields] AND "heraldry"[All Fields]) OR "genealogy and heraldry"[All Fields] OR "genealogy"[All Fields]) AND ("family"[MeSH Terms] OR "family"[All Fields]) AND ("history"[Subheading] OR "history"[All Fields] OR "history"[MeSH Terms]).  I clicked on the second article, [Genetic aspects of genealogy], then looked at the options for similar articles on the right side of the screen.  I clicked "See More" under the first five listed.

Clicking this brought up 263 results, and some were exactly what I was looking for.

The farther along you look in the list, the more relevant hits there are, interspersed with the more specific hits about places or family names.

There are many articles on this database regarding genetics, although most of them are incredibly technical in nature.  A layperson like a genealogy patron at my library would probably not find most of the articles on this website helpful.

The database is very interesting to search.  It automatically gives thesaurus options based on the words that you type; it lists these options under the search space for a researcher to choose if desired.  It has a number of filters, including a limiter for time (last five years, last ten years) and article types.    There are more specific databases that a searcher can use as well, so a searcher can perform a general search or only look through one of the many available databases.  It also shows you the specific details of your search, with the Boolean operators delineated clearly, so that you can see exactly what you are searching for and make any necessary changes to accurately search for results.  It gives a history of the searches you have made and the items you have viewed, so that you can keep track of the direction in which your searching has taken you.  

This database has a lot of very useful information on it, but none really relevant to the type of information that I usually search for my patrons at the library.  Most of my patrons are looking for very general information regarding genetics, and giving them any of the articles found on this website would simply confuse them.  The database would be very helpful to medical professionals.