List of Useful Resources for Beginners
This article originally appeared in "The Foundations of Family History Research" by Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, FUGA, and Loretto Dennis Szucs, FUGA in The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy
Contents
Conducting Basic Research and Record Keeping
American Genealogy: A Basic Course. National Genealogical Society. Online at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org. An online study course for various skill levels.
Booth, Wayne C., Joseph M. Williams, Gregory G. Colomb. The Craft of Research. 2nd ed. Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Carmack, Sharon DeBartolo. Organize Your Family History Research: Efficient and Effective Ways to Gather and Protect Your Genealogical Research. Cincinnati: Betterway Books, 1999.
Clifford, Karen. The Complete Beginner's Guide to Genealogy, the Internet, and Your Genealogy Software Program. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2002.
Crume, Rick. Plugging into Your Past. Cincinnati: Betterway Books, 2004.
Curran, Joan Ferris, Madilyn Coen Crane, John H. Wray. Numbering Your Genealogy: Basic System, Complex Families, and International Kin (Special Publications of the National Genealogical Society No. 64). Arlington, Va.: National Genealogical Society, 1999.
Dollarhide, William. Managing a Genealogical Project. Updated ed. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2001.
Fleming, Ann Carter. The Organized Family Historian: How to File, Manage, and Protect Your Genealogical Research and Heirlooms. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 2004.
Greenwood, Val D. Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy, 3rd ed. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2000.
McClure, Rhonda R. The Genealogist's Computer Companion. Cincinnati: Betterway Books, 2001.
---. Digitizing Your Family History. Cincinnati: Family Tree Books, 2004.
Morgan, George. How to Do Everything with Your Genealogy. New York: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2004.
MyFamily.com. Family History. CD-ROM (Win). Provo, Utah: MyFamily.com, 2004.
MyFamily.com. 1-2-3 Family Tree: The Fastest Way to Create and Grow Your Family Tree. Provo, Utah: MyFamily.com, 2003.
Porter, Pamela Boyer, and Amy Johnson Crow. Online Roots. How to Discover Your Family's History and Heritage with the Power of the Internet. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 2003.
Prescott, Laura G. "The Perspective of Timelines." Ancestry Magazine 22, no. 2 (March/April 2004).
Renick, Barbara. Genealogy 101: How to Trace Your Family's History and Heritage. Rutledge Hill Press, 2003.
Wright, Raymond S., III. The Genealogist's Handbook: Modern Methods for Researching Family History. Chicago: American Library Association, 1995.
Interviewing and Oral History
American Association for State and Local History. A Guide to Oral History Interviews. Technical Leaflet #210. Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 2000.
Huberman, Rob, and Laura Huberman. How to Create a Video Family History: The Complete Guide to Interviewing and Taping Your Families Stories & Memories. Margate, N.J.: ConteQ Communications, 2003.
Kroeber, Karl, ed. Native American Storytelling: A Reader of Myths & Legends. Ames, Iowa: Blackwell Publishers, 2004.
Nelson, Hasker. Listening for Our Past: A Lay Guide to African-American Oral History Interviewing. United States: Heritage Research Creations, 2000.
Neubauer, Joan R. From Memories to Manuscript: The Five-Step Method of Writing Your Life Story. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1994.
Neuenschwander, John A. Oral History and the Law. 3rd ed., rev. and enlarged. Denton, Tex.: Oral History Association, 2002.
Ritchie, Donald A. Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide. 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Sommer, Barbara W., and Mary Kay Quinlan. The Oral History Manual (American Association for State and Local History Book Series). Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 2003.
Sturm, Duane, and Pat Sturm. Video Family History. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1989.
Thompson, Paul. The Voice of the Past: Oral History. 3rd ed. London: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Locating and Caring for Home Sources
American Association of State and Local History. Caring for Family Treasures: Basic How-to from Storage to Donation. Technical Leaflet #225. Nashville: American Association of State and Local History: 2004.
American Diaries: An Annotated Bibliography of Published American Diaries and Journals. 2 vols. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1983, 1987.
Hinding, Andrea. Women's History Sources: A Guide to Archives and Manuscripts Collections in the United States. New York: R. R. Bowker, 1979.
Lester, Memory Aldridge. Old Southern Bible Records: Transcriptions of Births, Deaths and Marriages from Family Bibles, Chiefly of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Reprint, 1990; Baltimore: Clearfield Co., 2002.
Long, Jane S., and Richard W. Long. Caring for Your Family Treasures. New York: H. N. Abrams, 2000.
McClure, Rhonda R. Digitizing Your Family History: Easy Methods for Preserving Your Heirloom Documents, Photos, Home Movies, and More in a Digital Format. Cincinnati: Family Tree Books, 2004.
Pitman, Ann Mitchell. Inside the Jewelry Box: A Collectors Guide to Costume Jewelry, Identification, and Values. Paducah, Ky.: Collector Books, 2004.
Sagraves, Barbara. A Preservation Guide: Saving the Past and the Present for the Future. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1995.
Smolenyak, Megan. "Website helps return ''orphan' artifacts." Online at http://honoringourancestors.com/library_orphan.html.
Taylor, Maureen A. Preserving Your Family Photographs. Cincinnati: Betterway Books, 2001.
Weinstein, Robert A., and Larry Booth. Collection, Use, and Care of Historical Photographs. Nashville: American Association for State and Local History, 1989.
Dating Home Sources
Corson, Richard. Fashions in Hair, the First 5000 Years. 2nd ed. London: Peter Owen Publishers, 2001.
DeLorme, Maureen. Mourning Art & Jewelry. Altglen, Pa.: Schiffer Publishing, 2004.
Edmunds, Mary Jaene. Samplers and Samplermakers: An American Schoolgirl Art 1700-1850. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, 1991.
Friedman, Daniel. The Birth and Development of American Postcards: A History, Catalog, and Price Guide to U.S. Pioneer Postcards. Classic Postcards, 2003.
Frisch-Ripley, Karen. Unlocking the Secrets in Old Photographs. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1992.
Gagel, Diane Vanskiver. Ohio Photographers, 1839-1900. Nevada City, Calif.: Carl Mautz Publishing, 1998.
Massengill, Stephen E. Photographers in North Carolina: The First Century 1842-1941. Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 2004.
Nickell, Joe. Camera Clues: A Handbook for Photographic Investigation. Lexington: University of Kansas Press, 1994.
Pitman, Ann Mitchell. Inside the Jewelry Box: A Collectors Guide to Costume Jewelry, Identification, and Values. Paducah, Ky.: Collector Books, 2004.
Severa, Joan. Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion, 1840-1900. Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1995.
---. Daguerreian Portraits in America, 1840-1860. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2006.
Zeepyat, Charlotte. Queen Victoria's Family: A Century of Photographs 1840-1940. Reprint, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 2003.
Evidence Evaluation and Presentation
Anderson, Robert C. "Secrets of the Great Migration Study Project: Squeezing More out of the Early New England Records." Paper presented at the 2004 Federation of Genealogical Societies conference, Austin, Texas. Audio tape available from http://www.willowbendbooks.com. Syllabus material available from <http://www.fgs.org>.
Board for Certification of Genealogists. The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual. Washington, D.C.: Board for Certification of Genealogists, 2000.
Cerny, Johni, and Arlene H. Eakle. Ancestry's Guide to Research. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1984.
Croom, Emily Anne. The Sleuth Book for Genealogists. Strategies for More Successful Family History Research. Betterway Books, 2000.
Gouldrup, Lawrence. Writing the Family Narrative. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1992.
Hatcher, Patricia Law. Producing a Quality Family History. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1996.
---. "Adding Detail to Your Narrative." Ancestry Magazine 21, no. 4 (July/August 2003).
Jupiter, Del E. "Matilda Madrid: One Woman's Tale of Bondage and Freedom." National Genealogical Society Quarterly 91, no. 1 (March 2003): 41-59.
Leary, Helen F. M. "Finding Truth in a Family Tradition: Sumner Antecedents of Demsey S. Goodman." National Genealogical Society Quarterly 81, no. 3 (September 1993).
Lennon, Rachal Mills. "The Wives of Jonathan Turner: Identification of Women in Pre-Twentieth-Century South Carolina." National Genealogical Society Quarterly 92, no. 4 (December 2004): 245-55.
Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian. Regional Publishing Co., 2000.
---, ed. Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers and Librarians. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2001.
Remington, Gordon L. "A Royal Genealogical Fraud: Prince 'ÃòPetros Palaeologos' of the Isle of Wight." Genealogical Journal 32, no. 4 (2004): 154-57.
Rising, Marsha Hoffman. The Family Tree Problem Solver: Proven Methods for Scaling the Inevitable Brick Wall. Cincinnati: Family Tree Books, 2005.
Rubincam, Milton. Pitfalls in Genealogical Research. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1987.
Law, Medicine, and Genetics
Brooke, Heather. Your Right to Know: How to Use the Freedom of Information Act and other Access Laws. Pluto Press, 2005.
Carmack, Sharon DeBartolo. Carmack's Guide to Copyright & Contracts: A Primer for Genealogists, Writers & Researchers. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2005.
Charmasson, Henri. Patents, Copyrights & Trademarks for Dummies. For Dummies, 2004.
Lipson, Charles. Doing Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism, and Achieve Real Academic Success. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Maida, Pamela, ed. Freedom of Information Act Guide and Privacy Act Overview. May 2002 ed. Diane Publishing Co., 2002.
Roderick, Thomas H. "The Y Chromosome in Genealogical Research: From Their Ys a Father Knows His Own Son." National Genealogical Society Quarterly 88 (June 2000): 122-43. An introduction to use of Y-DNA.
Savin, Alan. DNA for Family Historians. Maidenhead, England: the author, 2000. An excellent thirty-two-page booklet by an author who has organized a family DNA study.
Shawker, Thomas H. Unlocking Your Genetic History. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 2004. The first comprehensive work on DNA for genealogists.
County Origins
Eichholz, Alice, ed. Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources. 3rd ed. Provo, Utah: Ancestry, 2004.
Everton, George B., Sr. The Handy Book for Genealogists. 10th ed. Logan, Utah: Everton Publishers, 2002.
Kane, Joseph Nathan. The American Counties: Origins of County Names, Dates of Creation and Population Data, and Published Sources. 5th ed. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 2004.
Long, John H., ed. Atlas of Historical County Boundary Changes. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993- . When completed, the series will include forty volumes.
Finding Maps, Atlases, and Place Names
Abate, Frank R., ed. Omni Gazetteer of the United States of America: Providing Name, Location, and Identification for Nearly 1,500,000 Populated Places and Geographic Features in the Fifty States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Territories. 11 vols. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1991.
American Geographical Society Library http://www.uwm.edu/Libraries/AGSL/intro.html, one of North America's foremost geography and map collections, consists of over one million items with a worldwide scope, including more than 500,000 maps and 9,000 atlases.
Arizona State University Libraries http://www.asu.edu/lib/hayden/govdocs/maps/geogname.htm offers links to Place Name Sites in the U.S., by states, and by country.
American Places Dictionary: A Guide to 45,000 Populated Places, Natural Features, and Other Places in the U.S. 4 vols. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1994.
Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley, http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/MapCollections.html guides users to the vast collection of atlases, maps, and gazetteers at UC and affiliate libraries. A listing of Internet resources in maps and cartography is at the same site.
David Rumsey Collection http://www.davidrumsey.com features over 12,600 high-resolution digital maps from the David Rumsey Map Collection, one of the largest private collections of historic maps in the United States. The collection has thirty-six complete American atlases dating from 1733 to 1885.
Department of the Interior. Catalog of the United States Geological Survey Library. 25 vols. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1964. 1st and 2nd supplements. 15 vols. 1972, 1974. Also http://gos2.geodata.gov/wps/portal/gos is the Geospatial One Stop guide to finding maps in the divisions of the Department of the Interior (including digitized maps).
Digital Librarian: Maps and Geography http://www.digital-librarian.com/maps.html lists all known sites featuring digitized U.S., Canadian, and worldwide maps and atlases, current and historical.
Gregory, Ian N. A Place in History: A Guide to Using GIS in Historical Research. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003.
Hargett, Janet L. List of Selected Maps of States and Territories. Special List Number 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives, 1998.
Hayward, John. A Gazetteer of the United States of America. Hartford, Conn.: Case, Tiffany, and Co. Online edition NewEnglandAncestors.org http://www.newenglandancestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2004.
Johnson, Jenny Marie. Geographic Information (How to Find It, How to Use It). Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003.
Library of Congress. The Bibliographic Guide to Maps and Atlases: 2002. 5 vols. Boston: G. K. Hall, 2003.
Monmonier, Mark. Mapping It Out: Expository Cartography for the Humanities and Society Sciences (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Newberry Library. Checklist of Printed Maps of the Middle West to 1900. Edited by Robert W. Karrow. 13 vols. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1981.
New York Public Library, Research Libraries. Dictionary Catalog of the Map Division. 10 vols. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1971.
Rumsey, David, and Edith M. Punt. Cartographical Extraordinaire: The Historical Map Transformed. Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press, 2004.
Thackery, David. "Gazetteers: Identifying Research Localities." Ancestry Magazine 12, no. 4 (July/August 1994).
Thiry, Christopher J. J., ed. Guide to U.S. Map Resource/Map and Geography Round Table (MAGERT) of the American Library Association. 3rd ed. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2005. A guide to hundreds of map collections and cartographic resources in libraries and repositories throughout the nation.
Thorndale, William, and William Dollarhide. Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920. Reprint, 1987; Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2003.
University of Texas at Austin. The Perry-Casteñeda Map Collection at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps. This world-renowned collection features several historical maps, urban and other, at the website.
History and Historical Atlases
Billington, Ray Allen, and Martin Ridge. Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier. 5th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1982.
Boyer, Paul S., et al. The Oxford Companion to United States History. London: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Cornelison, Pam, and Ted Yanik. The Great American History Finder: The Who, What, Where, When and Why of American History. 2nd updated rev. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 2004.
Earle, Jonathan. The Routledge Atlas of African American History. Routledge, 2000.
Gilbert, Martin, and Marin Gilbert. The Routledge Atlas of American History: From First Exploration to the Present Day. 4th ed. Routledge, 2003.
Grossman, James R., Ann Durkin Keating, and Janice L. Reiff. The Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Higgenbotham, Evelyn Brooks, et al. Harvard Guide to African-American History. Book and CD-ROM editions. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.
National Geographic Society. The National Geographic Historical Atlas of the United States. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2004.
Paullin, Charles O., and John K. Wright. Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States. 1932. Reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1975.
Royce, Charles C. Indian Cessions in the United States. 1900. Reprint, New York: Arno, 1970. Electronic version at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem as U.S. Serial Set 4015.
Urdang, Laurence, and Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. The Timetables of American History. New York: Touchstone, Millennium edition, 2001.
Wile, Annadel N., et al. C.R.I.S.: The Combined Retrospective Index Set to Journals in History, 1838-1974. 11 vols. Washington, D.C.: Carrollton Press, 1977.
Wishart, David. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
General Reference
Bentley, Elizabeth. The Genealogist's Address Book. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2005.
The Board for Certification of Genealogists. The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual. Washington, D.C.: Board for Certification of Genealogists, 2000.
Cerny, Johni, and Wendy Elliott. The Library: A Guide to the LDS Family History Library. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1988.
Chicago Manual of Style. 15th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Eales, Anne Bruner, and Robert M. Kvasnicka. Guide to Genealogical Research in the National Archives of the United States. 3rd ed. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2000.
Leary, Helen F. M., ed. North Carolina Research: Genealogy and Local History. 2nd ed. Raleigh: North Carolina Genealogical Society, 1996.
Mills, Elizabeth Shown, ed.. Professional Genealogy. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2001.
Rose, Christine. Courthouse Research for Family Historians: Your Guide to Genealogical Treasures. San Jose, Calif.: CR Publications, 2004.
Szucs, Juliana. The Ancestry Family Historian's Address Book. Orem, Utah: Ancestry, 2003.
Warren, James, and Paula Stuart Warren. Getting the Most Mileage from Genealogical Research Trips. 3rd ed. St. Paul, Minn.: Warren Research and Publishing, 1998.
Warren, Paula Stuart, and James Warren. Your Guide to the Family History Library. Cincinnati: Betterway Books, 2001.
