We bet it's happened to you: Lured by the promise of quickly locating your ancestors, you log on to one of the popular Web sites with immigration records, such as Ellis Island <ellisisland.org>, Castle Garden <castlegarden.org> or Ancestry.com <Ancestry.com >. Unfortunately, the search turns out to be less swift than you'd hoped. You know your ancestors are in that database somewhere, but your queries either come up empty or produce too many false matches.

If only you had more flexibility to refine your searches … for example, to find all Ellis Island immigrants named Stefano who were accompanied by Danielas. Or pare down the list of William Smiths at Castle Garden by specifying yours came from Scotland. Wouldn't it be great to glean the details you want with greater efficiency and less aggravation?

That's what Stephen P. Morse thought — and to the benefit of genealogists everywhere, he took action. On his One-Step Web Pages <stevemorse.org>, he's posted search forms he designed to enhance those popular databases' search capabilities, plus dozens more tools that'll streamline your research.