Great Genea Gift

Now that Christmas is over and I have a little more time to get caught up on my email and blog reading, I came across some posts on one of the rootsweb genea lists about great genealogy related gifts that some received. I just had to share my own.

My husband, who generally steers clear of genealogy gifts, got me the 3 volume Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States, comp. by Robert Matchette. All I can say about it is WOW! Pretty much everything you want to know about the records holdings at NARA is included. The holdings are arranged by Record Group and the third volume is an index so if you do not know the RG number you can just look it up, go to the appropriate volume and page, and find not only descriptive info on the RG but also some info on the subgroups to find out where exactly within the RG your particular info may be found.

It's an extremely useful reference tool, if you don't have it you may want to look into taking the plunge. I think you'd be glad you did.

Getting Ready for the First Book Review

Hey all, I received a book through Interlibrary Loan last week and have finally had a chance to start going through it a bit. The book is call Finding Indiana Ancestors: a Guide to Historical Research and it is a compilation of articles relating to successful genealogical research in the state. The articles appear to cover both broad topics, such as historical context in your research, as well as more specific topics, such as church and land records. I'm hoping to have a review put together either this week or next week.

I also have a second review lined up on a book called "Women and the Law of Property in Early America by Marylynn Salmon. Several people from the various study groups have mentioned this book in passing and it seems to be very well regarded as a book to add to your library reference shelf. So I'll be ordering that through my library's ILL this week and will let you all know how it goes.