Essential Books for Genealogy

Do you remember books? They were those paper things with a heavier cover that some of you may have lugged around during your early school years. Well. guess what? As genealogists much of what is useful and necessary in researching our ancestors is still stored in those paper pages. All you with bibliophobia can take comfort in the fact that many of these books are available in ebook editions or are already online. The following list contains those books I consider essential to an understanding of genealogy. Some of them seem to be overly topical or specific, but they are essential none-the-less. You may disagree because of your own particular interests or ancestry, but by and large, reading and/or studying any of these books will assist you in pursuing your goal to discover your ancestry. You are certainly welcome to add your own suggestions in the comments to this post.

Another point is that there may be an existing surname book or local history that would be extremely valuable to you and may be of no interest to me. I have done a list like this some time ago, but I decided to compile the present list without reference to the previous one (or ones) just to do one from my present perspective.

This list is in alphabetical order by citation. I think that some of these books are more useful than others, but rather than give a "review" of each book, it will suffice to have a list. By the way, as search on WorldCat.org for the word "genealogy" comes up with over 1.2 million items, most of which are books.

Ancestry.com (Firm), and D.C.) Board for Certification of Genealogists (Washington. Genealogy Standards, 2014.

Anderson, Robert Charles. Elements of Genealogical Analysis, 2014.

Anderson, Robert Charles, and New England Historic Genealogical Society. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995.

Anderson, Robert Charles, George Freeman Sanborn, Melinde Lutz Sanborn, New England Historic Genealogical Society, and Great Migration Study Project (New England Historic Genealogical Society). The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1999.

Baxter, Angus. In Search of Your British & Irish Roots: A Complete Guide to Tracing Your English, Welsh, Scottish, & Irish Ancestors. New York: Morrow, 1982.

Black, Henry Campbell, 1860-1927. Black’s law dictionary. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group, 2009.

Clemensson, Per, and Kjell Andersson. Your Swedish Roots: A Step by Step Handbook. Provo, UT: Ancestry, 2004.

Durie, Bruce. Scottish Genealogy. Stroud: History, 2012.

Eichholz, Alice, and Ancestry Publishing. Redbook: American State, County & Town Sources. Provo, Utah: Ancestry, 2004.

Evans, Barbara Jean, and Barbara Jean Evans. The New A to Zax: A Comprehensive Genealogical Dictionary for Genealogists and Historians. [Champaign, IL]: B.J. Evans, 1990.

Everton, George B. The Handybook for Genealogists: United States of America. Draper, Utah: Everton Publishers, 2002.

Fischer, David Hackett. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Greenwood, Val D. The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1990.

Herber, Mark D, and Society of Genealogists (Great Britain). Ancestral Trails: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History. Stroud, Gloucestershire [England]: History Press, 2008.

Humphery-Smith, Cecil R. The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers. Andover, Hampshire: Phillimore, 2010.

Jacobus, Donald Lines. Genealogy as Pastime and Profession. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1968.

Kinealy, Christine. Tracing Your Irish Roots. Belfast: Appletree Press, 1999.

Maxwell, Ian. How to Trace Your Irish Ancestors an Essential Guide to Researching and Documenting the Family Histories of Ireland’s People. Oxford: How To Books, 2008. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=244183.

Meyerink, Kory L, Tristan Tolman, and Linda K Gulbrandsen. Becoming an Excellent Genealogist: Essays on Professional Research Skills. [Salt Lake City, Utah]: ICAPGen, 2012.

Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Pub. Co., 2012.

———. Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers, and Librarians. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 2001.

Minert, Roger P. Deciphering Handwriting in German Documents: Analyzing German, Latin, and French in Vital Records Written in Germany. Woods Cross, Utah: GRT Publications, 2001.

Ryskamp, George R. Finding Your Hispanic Roots. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1997.

———. Tracing Your Hispanic Heritage. Riverside, Calif.: Hispanic Family History Research, 1984.

Ryskamp, George R, and Peggy Ryskamp. Finding Your Mexican Ancestors: A Beginner’s Guide. Provo, Utah: Ancestry Pub., 2007.

Sperry, Kip. Reading Early American Handwriting. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1998.

Szucs, Loretto Dennis, and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking. The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1997.

The Chicago Manual of Style. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Weil, François. Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America, 2013.

Take Time to Read a Book -- A new feature

Yesterday, I took the time to figure out how to check books out of the Brigham Young University, Harold B. Lee Library. I then went down to the first level, which is two stories underground and one level down from the underground Family History Library and walked the stacks. This activity immediately took me back in time to my earliest memories of searching the stacks in the Phoenix Public Library when I was about eight or nine years old. Reading books online is certainly more convenient and works better into my frantic life style, but there is something immensely important about seeing all those books carefully lined up and cataloged on the shelves. I can hardly convey the feeling of walking into that immense array of shelves.

It is summer at the university and my trip to the stacks was solitary. There were only one or two students studying at tables as I ventured into the human wilderness of books. After finding the specific book I was looking for, I returned to my old habit of reading the shelves. I quickly located the genealogy related books and found a significant storehouse of books on this subject. Nothing much compared to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, but a significant collection none the less. When combined with the Family History Library upstairs and the Social Sciences Library where I was browsing, there is a useful and impressive collection of books.

As I selected a couple of books to read, I realized that I had neglected this important area of my own background and failed to share my love of books with my blog readers. I did post a list of essential books just recently, but a cold list is no substitute for a review. I do not review books in the traditional way, pointing out the problems or benefits of the book, instead, I usually communicate my own reactions and thoughts about the content. I have been reviewing chapters of the book:

Meyerink, Kory L, Tristan Tolman, and Linda K Gulbrandsen. Becoming an Excellent Genealogist: Essays on Professional Research Skills. [Salt Lake City, Utah]: ICAPGen, 2012.

but I realized that I had gained access to a goldmine of information in the BYU Library and that it would be nice to share some of that information with my readers (those I haven't driven away already by my opinions and commentary). My benefit will be to return to my habit of reading two or more books a week. I have been known to read more than a dozen, but that was long before my life became complicated and I began spending so much time writing.

Part of my motivation for beginning a book review feature is that I am acutely aware of how few genealogists or would-be researchers are acquainted with the benefits of reading genealogy books. My observations in both the Mesa FamilySearch Library and here at BYU is that visitors to the Libraries rarely, if ever, look at the books. I was asked a question the other evening and I took the person asking the question over to the shelves nearby and pulled out the book that they needed to answer the question. From what I could tell, the person was dumbfounded and didn't really know what to do with this strange answer to her question. I am sure she was asking, "Does this person really think I will read an entire book just to answer a simple question?" Well, actually the answer her reaction is "Yes, I do expect myself and others to read books and answer their own questions." 

One of the books I picked up in the BYU Library (my shorthand name for the Brigham Young University, Harold B. Lee Library) turns out to be a delightful book as follows:

Rogers, Colin, and Colin Rogers. Tracing Your English Ancestors: A Manual for Analysing and Solving Genealogical Problems, 1538 to the Present. Manchester, UK; New York; New York, NY, USA: Manchester University Press ; Distributed in the USA and Canada by St. Martins’s Press, 1989.

In this day of instant technology, it is good idea to remember that genealogists are interested in history and even an older book can have an immense value to our research efforts. This pre-computer-technology book will be my first official review in this ongoing series.

25,000 Early English Books Online from the University of Michigan

Thanks to a post by John D. Reid on his Canada's Anglo-Celtic Connections blog, I learned about the books printed between 1473 and 1700 now online curtesy of the University of Michigan libraries. These are not digitized books, but the full text transcriptions of the contents. Here is a description of the newly added text files from the University of Michigan Library:

The texts of the first printed editions of Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Milton as well as lesser-known titles from the early modern era can now be freely read by anyone with an Internet connection. The University of Michigan Library, the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries and ProQuest have made public more than 25,000 manually transcribed texts from the first 200 years of the printed book (1473-1700). These texts represent a significant portion of the estimated total output of English-language work published during the first two centuries of printing in England. 

The release (via Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication) marks the completion of the first phase in the Early English Books Online-Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP). An anticipated 40,000 additional texts are planned for release into the public domain by the end of the decade. 

Full-text public access to the transcribed EEBO-TCP texts is hosted by the U-M Library at quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebogroup. The Bodleian offers individual text downloads in several formats, including ePUB files.

The contents of the new offerings on both the Oxford University and ProQuest offerings are only available to registered users. Fortunately, the list of the books is available without registration on the Oxford University website and the list and the contents can be searched on the University of Michigan website.

If you have been hoping to push your genealogical efforts back to the 1600s and even the 1500s, you can get a good idea of what would be entailed in such an effort from looking at a few of these books. You can also search online for digitized copies of these books or other text transcriptions.

Required Genealogical Reading

As I work in various genealogy libraries, I find an interesting phenomena. Very few of the patrons use the books. Even in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, very few of the patrons actually use the book collection as compared to those who are busily involved with computers. I also find it interesting that young people are being told to do genealogy (or family history) without any attempt being made to provide them with instruction. As I was working in the Brigham Young University Family History Library yesterday, there was an entire class of family history students who were searching for resource material. It was not that they were going to use the material in any way they were simply being given an assignment to look for and find certain books and other reference materials. After a very short time, they all disappeared from the library.

I had another experience along the same lines. In a class I was teaching, I was using the following book as an example of one of the best beginning reference works about genealogical research.

Greenwood, Val D. The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy. Baltimore, Md: Genealogical Publishing Co, 2000.

One of the class participants observed that the book was published in the year 2000. He questioned whether the book was still relevant because it was so "old." I pointed out that the book referred to historical records for the most part, and they were unlikely to go out of date. The fact that there were few references to online or computerized searches was unimportant.

Started me thinking about the books that I would suggest to anyone who wishes to become truly involved in genealogy and achieve some measure of competency. I've tried to do some of these lists in the past but I feel that there is a need for an update. Whether or not you are a beginner or an expert, you need to have a basic understanding of the history of genealogy. I am aware of only one book that covers the subject from an academic, and mostly impartial standpoint. This book is as follows:

Weil, François. Family Trees: A History of Genealogy in America. 2013.

Although the topic of the book is American genealogy, there are enough references to work done in Europe to give a good idea of the history on the Continent. You may be surprised and even offended by what was passed off as genealogy in the United States previously.

Another essential book for an understanding of the complex processes that preceded the modern giant online resource known as FamilySearch.org is the following book:

Allen, James B., Jessie L. Embry, and Kahlile B. Mehr. Hearts Turned to the Fathers: A History of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894-1994. Provo, Utah: BYU Studies, Brigham Young University, 1995.

In my opinion, this book should be required reading for anyone associated with FamilySearch. Actually, in reading the book I'm surprised that it was ever written. However, the value of the book is not confined to understanding FamilySearch, it is also a valuable reference for an understanding of the current large online databases and how they came to be. The book is available online from Amazon.com and in various libraries.

My list of "essential" books is substantially shorter than a suggested reading list. Of course, most genealogical books fall into the category of reference material. One could hardly be expected to sit down and read a reference book from cover to cover. But I would strongly suggest reading the latest addition of the following book:

Szucs, Loretto Dennis, and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking. The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy. Provo, UT: Ancestry, 2006.

I have found a number of books written about genealogical research in specific countries that I feel are extremely valuable. So, if you are involved in research in a specific country I would search out books on doing research in that particular country. I feel that many people believe that books have been marginalized by the Internet. Of course, I do seek out digitized copies of the books I read one available, simply because I can access the books from my computer or mobile device and can read them at my leisure rather than carting around a book. But I still suggest that referring to books is an essential part of genealogical research.

I've been focusing lately on the selective collection of reference books in the Brigham Young University Family History Library. I feel it is a tragedy that these books are largely ignored by most the patrons of the library. You may have your own list of essential genealogy books. If you like, make a comment and add additional books you think are essential. Then, if you are reading this post, don't forget to read the comments.