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I'm researching the Windmill surname. I find that most of the results I come up with online and in searches in newspapers etc are related to either a windmill (eg Pitstone Windmill) or a road (eg Windmill Close) rather than a person (eg John Windmill) as there are not many people with this surname.

Does anyone on here have any good tips how I can search resources more efficiently?

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I suspect if you are using the dark art of googling that you'll need to search for two words at the same time i.e. 'windmill surname', 'windmill obituary', '"John Windmill"' etc. And if you are searching specific genealogy focused websites (e.g. Genesreunited, or Familysearch) then you will be likely to come across Windmill as a surname, rather than occurrences of wind driven mills.

Have you considered setting up a "My Surname is Windmill" Facebook group, or similar?
I know the problem, especially with newspaper archives. I search for Sandow and get all the racing results at Sandown back to domesday. I have no solution yet, especially if you're fishing. If the search is more specific you can combine terms to narrow the field, but even windmill+probate would probably bring you all the bequeathed mills in the country. But combining carefully selected terms is one way to go. I also find that once you're through the good results for combined terms, I still find interesting stuff n the near misses and go through those too, until the junk becomes too tedious.
Thanks for the reply. Most interesting :)
I didn't think I would be alone but thought it worthwhile finding out others solutions

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