Customer Reviews

Hidden Sources: Family History in Unlikely Places

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Laura Szucs Pfeiffer has written an exciting new book, "Hidden Sources: Family History in Unlikely Places" to help genealogists and historians in their endless quest for records and documentation. From "A to Z," Ms. Pfeiffer has compiled a comprehensive list of over 100 sources and suggestions where to search for little-used or over-looked records.

All the brainstorming work has been done for you! Instead of the normal "how to do" genealogy book Ms. Pfeiffer written a book that tells you simply what to do and how to direct your search.

Each clue to the many little-used records she suggests includes a "Selected Reading" list and "Internet Sites of Interest." These little-used records will assist genealogists and historians with documentation to prove the existence of an individual or family. Ms Pfeiffer's list is more than the standard suggestions for records such as birth, death, marriage; cemetery records; local or county histories; or, census records.

For example, her book contains information related to how to obtain records of adoptions and apprenticeships, autobiographies, unusual death records, farm records, coroner's inquests, court records, guardianship records, homestead records, immigrant letters, licenses, marriage dispensations, midwives' records, passport applications, school records. And this is just a few of the many ideas and suggestions!

The Appendix includes address, telephone numbers and internet website URLs for the National Archives and Records Administration, State Archives, Historical Societies, the Family History Library and its Centers, Genealogical Societies, Major U.S. Genealogical Libraries. Most importantly, it contains a very good index.

This 290-page book is a must have every genealogist and library.

Hidden Sources: Family History In Unlikely Places will alert the neophyte genealogist to a diversity of unexpected and productive resources capable of filling in the gaps of family charts and providing missing information on genealogical relationships. Highly recommended for personal, professional, and community library genealogical reference collections, Hidden Sources, demonstrates that there is a wealth of obscure, overlooked, and misunderstood sources that can and will reveal invaluable, unique, unusual, and sometimes minute detail about a family or individual.

Hidden Sources covers many sources that new and experienced Genealogists use. Where ever one is in their search, this book conatins sources help find ancestors and information about their lives. Through these ancestors living relations will be found, some may have family bibles, diaries, pictures to share. Hidden sources helped me get over a 20 year old brick wall. This book should be on every family researchers' book shelf. I recommend re-reading it every year or so. The significance of a section may not be apparant until the researcher hits a snag.

ETR
Denver