Customer Reviews

Tracing Your Family History (Collins S.)

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This is an updated edition of a book that was first published in 2004. It is well produced and lavishly illustrated, though some sections could have done with a bit of basic, old-fashioned editorial work and proof-reading. The author, an experienced professional genealogist, covers all the standard sources: oral evidence; birth, marriage and death certificates; census returns; wills, and so on. But there are also useful sections on subjects not touched on by earlier books on family history, such as the implications of DNA technology for genealogists, and the tracing of ancestors who were not born in Great Britain. It is particularly helpful to have an up-to-date address list, which includes some of the most useful websites. In all, a valuable addition to any family historian's library, whether they are a beginner or an old hand.

'Tracing Your Family History' is an excellent guide and reference book that will be useful for any genealogist starting out on a serious family history quest. Not owning Mark Herber's similarly aimed book, 'Ancestral Trails', which at a whopping 840 pages is more than twice the size of Adolph's volume, I can't compare the two, but TYFH is certainly a book that's designed to be used and would make an excellent present for someone starting out in their research. It's the kind of book that's worth dipping in to, and returning to from time to time, as well as reading from cover to cover.

Its chapters are structured by category of record, which means that it is easy find everything you need about specific types or sets of records in one place. This is useful as, once your family history investigation gets under way, this is usually the way one organises the research process.

One danger facing any author in this field is that the internet references quickly become dated. TYFH has a large number of URLs that can be usefully followed up, in fact more than enough to keep an assiduous researcher fully occupied for many, many months. However, if you're the kind of researcher that has to nail down every reference or potential website record then you probably need Peter Christian's 'The Genealogist's Internet', now in its third edition, as well.

It's hard to imagine any single book containing everything that a present-day genealogist would ever want, the range of documentary materials transcribed and online records available is simply too great, but this is an exellent single-volume description of the field that covers the full scope that almost all family history projects will ever need.

This book is informed with the intelligence, love of the subject and sheer practical utility that the genealogist Anthony Adolph brings to his numerous television appearances. It is a fountain of excellent practical advice and a splendid introduction to this utterly fascinating subject. Highly recommended!