How to Trace Your Family Tree

Rating:
Summary: Good Starting Point!
Review: For someone interested in tracing thier family tree, this book is a good starting point. It explains how to get started and where to go from there. There is a great section on how to use your family members for information. There are also sections on where to find family records. The charts they include, however are very small and need to be reproduced in order to be used. Overall this book is worth reading if your thinking about digging into your past successfully.

Rating:
Summary: Review-How to Trace Your Family Tree
Review: The staff of the American Genealogical Research Institute have compiled an easy to understand primer for the beginning genealogist in the How to Trace Your Family Tree.

This book consists of 11 Chapters and a bibliography. Procedures for the genealogist range from organizing genealogy research findings, beginning research with living immediate family members and various sources for research including printed sources, local records, state records, federal research sources and the miscellaneous records of churches and cemeteries. Also included is a chapter on heraldry and final chapter on hereditary, patriotic and genealogical societies.

Thoughout the book, there are no endnotes or footnotes for each of the chapters. There is, however a bibliography at the end of the book presumably listing all references used in compiling this primer. Without the endnotes and footnotes of each chapter, it is difficult to understand where the material has been drawn.

All in all, How to Trace Your Family Tree is a good example of a genealogical reference guide that is useful for beginning genealogists. For those who are advanced in the research, this book offers little value.

I would recommend it as a quick reference guide for those who are just embarking on the genealogy research.

Gordon S. Harmon
Springfield, MO
May 26, 2003