LexisNexis

LexisNexis
 Using the LexisNexis search box, I did a search for my topic.  I searched for a simple keyword “genealogy” and received 987 hits.  The second hit was from 1996, so I decided to limit the amount of years covered in my search.  I also decided to add (family history) as a search term, so my search looked like this:

Genealogy OR (family history)

I also limited the hits to options from October 1, 2014 through October 12, 2015.  This time there were over 1000 hits.  Adding the OR option added a lot of hits, even though I severely limited the years of recall.  On the left were a list of limiters as well, and I used that to choose an option of only looking at “Magazines and Journals,” which limited my hits to 20.

The fifth article, Genealogy with Janice, has a number of cute games that you can play with kids to teach them about genealogy.  It’s something that a patron might search.


I then limited to only court cases and searched about genealogy and DNA.  I found an interesting court case. 

The illegitimate child of a woman was suing the two legitimate children for a share of the mother’s, grandfather’s, and grandmother’s estates.  The two legitimate children filed an objection that the illegitimate child was not provably a child of the mother and some evidence was erroneously entered into the case.  Various witnesses came forward to testify that the mother was, indeed, pregnant as a teenager before her marriage, and the child was raised elsewhere.  The objection was overruled.

I don’t think that the LexisNexis database would be very helpful for any of my patrons.  Genealogy researchers are less interested in newspaper articles and more interested in documents that prove their research.  The exception to this may be the court cases; the case on the illegitimate son was interesting, and would send a genealogical search in a new direction for sure!  Depending on how far back the court cases are documented on the site, they could be very helpful for an experienced genealogist looking for information on a hard-to-find relative!

Searchwise, LexisNexis was fairly standard.  It utilizes Boolean searching, limiters, and a thesaurus to aid searchers, and has a limited number of databases that it covers.  A reporter looking for old newspaper articles, a paralegal searching for court cases, and a business-person looking for operating information for a business would find the database very useful.