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She discussed techniques and common pitfalls that were very helpful despite my having many years of good solid experience. Excellent resource for American ancestors from 1800-1900.
Beginners as well as experienced researchers will benefit from this book. In addition, Ms. I'm an experienced genealogist and a trained researcher who has been working for 25 years on my family lines. Her research methods are applicable to ANY time period you are working in.
This book is a cut above many popular genealogy "how to" books.I'm really picky about genealogy books, and this one is excellent. What will help doing genealogy research most of all is knowing how to evaluate what you have and how to recognize what else you need. The land chapter, in particular, and the chapter on working in the years between the Revolutionary War and 1850, gave me several directions to go in knocking down some brick walls. Most books don't discuss carefully evaluating evidence and really thinking through problems associated with conflicting information, burned counties, brick walls etc.
I disagree with another reviewer who complained that this book won't help someone with "late" immigrant ancestors. This book does much more. The "thinking" in this book and the examples of alternative sources one may not be familiar with are what is outstanding. Rising's examples are clear, easy to follow and informative, and there are many of them.
Sources that are mentioned in the text are not in the index nor clearly explained.As an example the source I know as the "Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature" was mentioned, more than once, under an odd acronym and I did not find any explanation or comment on the acronym or the different title. As a genealogy reference or guide I found this book to be a dud.It has almost the worst Index I have ever seen.
But I have not finished traveling all the paths the book suggests. This book is excellent to assist the serious genealogist. I would recommend the book to give you a serious and straight forward path to follow rather than randomly searching. Some I have, some are still waiting. It requires some dedication to follow through the suggestions but if you do, you will learn a lot. Unfortunately, for all my dedication, I still have not uncovered my paternal grandfather's secrets.
It is easy to follow with good examples. I am sure that this book will prove very useful in my genealogy research.
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