Family History 101: A Beginner's Guide to Finding Your Ancestors [Paperback]

Marcia Melnyk (Author)

Book Description

Series: Family Tree | Publication Date: January 10, 2005

A Beginner's Guide to Finding Your Ancestors

Have you always wanted to find out more about your family and where you came from, but never knew where to begin? Look no further - Family History 101 will teach you proven techniques to help you uncover the names, dates, and stories that lie in your past.

You will be eased into family history with:

• Straightforward tips on tapping the power of the internet.
• Checklists, forms, case studies, and illustrations that make getting started fun and easy.
• Guidance on maximizing existing information, finding more, and what it all means.
• Tips and techniques for recording and sharing all the wonderful family data you will uncover.

Newcomers to genealogy, schoolteachers, and anyone interested in uncovering the fascinating roots of their family tree will appreciate the reliable, step-by-step instruction and dependable approach to the basics provided by Family History 101. Start learning about the past and your family's place in it today!

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This handy guide is a beginner's primer to genealogy. For those new to the hunt, plenty of basic research tips are supplied. After outlining the most fruitful starting points, the author provides information on recording data, surfing the Web in search of relevant information, separating facts from fiction, and accessing the most likely places to locate records. Though seasoned family historians will have progressed well beyond these basic suggestions, novices wondering where and how to undertake the task will appreciate having the fundamentals succinctly laid out for them. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Marcia D. Yannizze Melnyk is a popular author and lecturer. She is the author of The Genealogist's Question & Answer Book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 154 pages
• Publisher: Family Tree Books (January 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558707069
• ISBN-13: 978-1558707061
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,573,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Introduction, November 18, 2010

By 

L. Schneemann (San Luis Obispo, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Family History 101: A Beginner's Guide to Finding Your Ancestors (Paperback)

I got this book in association with an intro to genealogy class and found it to be a good basic overview of what you should know if you're new to genealogy.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extremely basic - for beginners only, December 7, 2008

By 

Mary Chrapliwy (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Family History 101: A Beginner's Guide to Finding Your Ancestors (Paperback)

This is a very basic step-by-step book about beginning your family tree (also referred to as family history in the book). It is an extremely brief overview of the things that a beginning genealogist should do to get started. Though it has 10 chapters covering 10 different topics, the information is very sparse and none of the chapters cover any of the issues in very great detail.

This book is probably good for a beginner - someone who hasn't gathered any information yet at all. For someone who has already started family research, it doesn't cover enough ground to be useful. Definitely a beginner book only.

This book does call itself beginners guide, but I'm pretty sure the information would not continue to be of much use once the beginner got started. In other words, the shelf-life and/or usefulness of the book would quickly decline once you get started. This one would be best borrowed from a library. Save your hard-earned money for more detailed, useful books that will stay on your shelf for years to come. One book I suggest is Finding Your Roots by Jeane Eddy Westin - though the book was written quite a few years ago, it is fun to read and is chock full of great information.