Allowing Your Computer To Do Your Genealogy Research

I have always been a tech savvy person and know that any task that you have to do repeatedly, that there is always a way of automating the process. I automate tasks at work all the time as there aren’t enough hours in a day.

So I actually apply my computer background in genealogy. My background includes dismantling machines, hacking for a good cause which is known to today as a White Hat Hacker, writing code in a multitude of languages, but also loving command prompt commands as it provides you with more control, such as what Microsoft DOS, Unix, and now Linux does today. However, today’s discussion involves none of that but something I believe the average user of a computer or even a novice will be able to do.

So just like I do some functions of automation during my day job as a senior technical program manager, I apply my knowledge in genealogy. It is why I provide everyone with where to find books within a film for the multitude of church records I provide.

Have Adobe Acrobat Reader Do Your Genealogy Work

So today, our computers are becoming more intelligent and can take care of some of our tasks thanks to Natural Language Processing or NLP. NLP has taken us into a world where we are helping our machines and applications become more intelligent. A perfect example is Adobe Acrobat Reader. Due to the multitude of books I have, I decided to scan some. In addition, I have images of Puerto Rico Censuses and church records from over the years. I took these images and merged them into PDF books to create collections.

Next, I open up Adobe Acrobat Reader without opening up a file. You can do this on a Windows 10 computer but clicking the Start button, and finding Acrobat Reader DC under “A” on the list of applications.

Once you open up Acrobat Reader, you should be greeted with an empty view. Click on Edit on the menu.

Then click on Advanced Search, not Find, which is different.

The radio button is defaulted to “In the current document” under “Where would you like to search?“. You should change the value to “All PDF Documents in” and then click on the drop down to navigate where you want it to search. Select “Browse for Location…“

A window should pop open. Navigate to the folder you want it to search for information. Notice that I selected a folder called Trujillo Alto.

Depending on how many PDFs in the folder, it can take some time but let the application run and you will be provided with results. The software will look at file names but it also reads internally in the document. Type the surname you want to search; I searched for the name Bayala in the folder. You should be greeted with a security warning, you have to click Allow to permit the software to search.

Once search is complete, you should see a list of documents.

Notice the caret “>” to the left of each file name. If you click on it, it will expand and provide you with further details. You can then click on the entry and it will take you directly to where it has located the information, no matter how many pages the PDF may contain.

Below I did another search in another folder for the same surname, Bayala. I downloaded some Gazettas or Gazettes, which are newspapers and saved them as PDFs. As you can see based on the below image, it found my Bayala contained within the document.

Below is the image of the document. Notice that Acrobat Reader places a blue box around the content and thereby making your research much easier. Note that this trick works with even digitized church records.

Hopefully this trick can be used by many genealogists. Feel free to leave comments below. Happy researching as always!