Genealogy Searches

After looking for family on the Internet for several years, it seems like their must be an easier way. Just a few issues . . .

- I have to know the exact place to look. The Internet is like there are hundreds of thousands of genealogy libraries each with a different arrangement of shelves and each with a different arrangement of books on shelves.
- Inaccurate searches. Even if I know the exact location, a search usually brings me thousands of hits that don't mean a thing. e.g. three of my grandparents are names that have other meanings - Read, Cook, and Hall. A search for Hall returns every building on every campus in the world - seems like it anyway.
- Searches are gone as soon as I close the browser. Once I go through the extensive list of bad hits and leave the site, new records are added to the site. When I return, I must go through the same bad hits again just to get to the new stuff because the site doesn't remember me, my search, or the stuff I have already looked through.

What can be done about this?