I don’t like it when the computer thinks for me. I don’t like it when Google thinks for me either.

I’ve been looking for some material on my Goldenstein family which originated in Wrisse, Ostfriesland, Germany. While Google is not the only place to locate such material online, it is a good start. The problem is that it tries to “help” by thinking that I meant “Goldstein.” While I am fully aware that names can be spelled a variety of ways in certain materials, this family is pretty consistent in using the “Goldenstein” spelling.

Quotation marks around the words will force Google to look for only the spellings that I include, not others that it thinks may be helpful. Of course putting quotes around the phrase will force Google to search for the phrase “goldenstein wrisse,” which is not what I want.

It’s always nice to have options and if I want to look for goldstein later, I can simply use “goldstein” as one of my search terms.