From roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com Fri Jun 2 12:30:35 2006 Received: from mail.rootsweb.com (mail.rootsweb.com [192.168.65.34]) by admin.rootsweb.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id k52IUZjb031785; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 12:30:35 -0600 Received: from roots-l.rootsweb.com (roots-l.rootsweb.com [66.43.16.22]) by mail.rootsweb.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k52IUYlo000465 for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 12:30:34 -0600 Received: from roots-l.rootsweb.com (roots-l [127.0.0.1]) by roots-l.rootsweb.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id k52FtHFI005642 for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:55:18 -0400 Received: (from roots-in@localhost) by roots-l.rootsweb.com (8.12.10/8.12.8/Submit) id k52FtH3n005641 for roots-approved@rootsweb.com; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:55:17 -0400 Received: from lists5.rootsweb.com (lists5.rootsweb.com [66.43.27.41]) by roots-l.rootsweb.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with SMTP id k52EsdFI005413 for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 10:54:39 -0400 Received: (from slist@localhost) by lists5.rootsweb.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) id k52HTiXx029330 for roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:29:44 -0600 X-Envelope-From: ChristieTrapp@aol.com Fri Jun 2 11:29:43 2006 Received: from mail.rootsweb.com (mail.rootsweb.com [192.168.65.34]) by admin.rootsweb.com (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id k52HThjb029319 for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:29:43 -0600 Received: from imo-d05.mx.aol.com (imo-d05.mx.aol.com [205.188.157.37]) by mail.rootsweb.com (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k52HTdZi029384 for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 11:29:40 -0600 Received: from ChristieTrapp@aol.com by imo-d05.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v38_r7.5.) id e.494.1ba0240 (39953) for ; Fri, 2 Jun 2006 13:29:26 -0400 (EDT) From: ChristieTrapp@aol.com Message-ID: <494.1ba0240.31b1cf76@aol.com> Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2006 13:29:26 EDT To: ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" X-Mailer: 9.0 Security Edition for Windows sub 5300 X-Spam-Flag: NO X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.52 on 192.168.65.34 X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.52 on 192.168.65.34 Sender: roots-in@roots-l.rootsweb.com Subject: [ROOTS-L] The Source and other books In a message dated 6/1/2006 3:45:16 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, ROOTS-L-request@rootsweb.com writes: From: "Ida" Subject: Ancestry The Source Does anyone know what the Source Book is that Ancestry just sent out E-mails on? The cost is 69.95 for subscribers. Thanks, Ida Ida: The Source is a book that is written by several authors with chapters about various topics that will help you in researching genealogy. It is like a "How-To" to doing genealogy. It will give you ideas to point you in directions that perhaps you have never thought about in researching your family likes. For example, (I will give brief examples-though not every topic) it talks about major record sources - home and family, cemetery and vital records, marriage and divorce records, etc. It discusses published genealogical sources such as city directories, newspapers, etc. Then there are special resources such as tracking immigrant origins or urban ancestors, or Indian research, black ancestral research or Asian, Jewish and many other subjects. The first one published was in 1984 and written by Arlene Eakle & Johni Cerny. Both of these women have been doing genealogy, professionally, for many years. Arlene Eakle appears at seminars all over the country to talk about genealogy. Johni Cerny is the quiet one, you don't hear much about her activities. That first volume was only $39.95 and you may still be able to get it, perhaps through a used book store. The second one, a revised one in 1997 was edited by Loretto Dennis Szucs and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking. They took the information from the first book and rearranged it slightly but it covers basically the same topics that were in the first edition, added new information and added other authors such as Kory L. Meyerink, George Ryskamp, Kathleen W. Hinkley and others who are also professional researchers and they, in their own right have published books and articles. For those of you who have subscribed to Heritage Quest magazine you may have seen articles by these three authors just listed. There are other authors included but I didn't name them. Kory is based in Salt Lake and if any of you have attended the Salt Lake Seminar that is put on by the Utah Genealogical Association in January each year, Kory has been one of the instructors during the week. This version cost $49.95. >From the price given in the message above, it looks like either the price has gone up, or they have not revised The Source yet again. The bottom line is that every researcher needs to have some books on their shelves to aid them in their research. You can't find every answer on the little ol' computer. Some of these books need to be how-to books or finding aids which gives you tips about where to look. This being one of them. I haven't seen the latest and greatest Source, but I have both editions described above and have read them from cover to cover. They not only helped me at the time I read them by giving me ideas for research, but I have returned to these books time and again to refresh my memory about a particular topic. Another book that is a must have is William Dollarhide's book that has the census maps from 1790 to 1920. This book is a series of state maps beginning with the earliest census and takes you through the border changes for the various counties of your particular interest. You will see the baseline of the present day state county borders overlaid with the county lines that were current for that particular census year. This will help you to understand why you can't find a particular record in a particular county - county borders changed. It does not include the 1930 maps because he published this before the 1930 census was ever available. I don't know if any counties changed borders after 1930 or not, I don't think many would have changed their borders, but if they did, there probably weren't too many that did. A check of a current road map that defines counties might give you this answer. This book is usually found at a public library or at any genealogical library, but having one at home in your personal library will help those who are more homebound do genealogy via the computer with on-line census research. A third book that is a must have is any version of The Handybook. Some of the early editions can probably be found in a used book store as some people want to have the latest and greatest edition and sell off or give away their older editions. The older edition will cover the U.S. only and the cost of the volume will be cheaper than the newest edition. Later editions started adding new maps, new countries and that sort of thing. The latest version that I know about just about covers the entire world. It is big, bulky, and heavy and costs almost $90. If you aren't into world research yet, try and find an earlier edition. It does have for each state a break down of the counties, with the dates of founding, what was the original county for that state, the name of the county seat with address and phone number (with the older versions, these addresses and phone numbers might have been changed over the years, so it is best to check with the phone company to see if the phone number has ben changed or find a new version and check that). It also describes what each county has in the way of vital records and how far back they go (when they start, in other words). It will give a list of genealogical societies, libraries and that sort of thing and sometimes a short bibliography. I don't have the latest and greatest edition as I didn't want to spend the big bucks and I don't need the entire world at my fingertips. I deal mostly with Sweden and England, so don't need a map of say Italy or Germany or information about them. Someone else who has purchased this more expensive volume can describe that version in another message to the list. There are books on words and definitions such as A to Zak that might be helpful to own so that you can look up what it means to be say a yeoman or have some weird occupation you never heard of. It just might be listed in these type of books. There are several out there and you should own at least a couple or three because if one doesn't have the word you are looking for, another one just might. Of course dictionaries are a necessary evil - if you are researching in foreign records, you need to find a dictionary in that language that converts it into English. Those travel dictionaries probably won't have what you need because they are designed for travelers so they can speak bare minimum words to order off a menu. You need to find a good sized one, one like a Webster's Dictionary but not Webster's! For me, I needed a Swedish Dictionary. I thought that going to the local university book store where they teach languages would be a good choice for finding one, but after purchasing it I found it didn't have some of the words I was finding in the records. That was very frustrating. Luckily I have relatives in Sweden and so I went there and asked them to help me find a good Swedish-English dictionary. They took me to the local book store and helped me pick one out as there were several choices. You might luck out and find a good one. Perhaps the Spanish-English, German-English, French-English ones are okay because those languages are the ones most commonly taught at local schools and universities. But the not-so-common languages may be a bit harder to find a good dictionary. These books described above should get everyone started on their own personal genealogical library for now. There are others I could discuss, but then I could write a book, couldn't I? Christie Trapp