Customer Reviews

The Unpuzzling Your Past Workbook

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book appears to be about 250 pages (un-numbered). It's complete with basic forms such as pedigree and family group sheets, but goes beyond with census extraction forms & check lists, Military Record checklists, research planning worksheets and contact logs. Croom's has included completed examples of these forms which make it easy to understand. Very helpful to new and intermediate users.

I have to strongly disagree with the words "for all genealogists" in the book title. This is a great book if you are doing beginning or intermediate research in the United States. However, if the majority of your research is based anywhere else, it's not worth buying and it's definitely not "for all genealogists".

My research is almost solely based in the UK and this book has been totally useless to me. The following are examples:

Census forms: (years 1790-1920, 4-5 of each, totalling approximately 64 tear-out pages) are for the United States and do not bear any census dates or helpful information for the UK or any other county.

Military Records Check Lists: also for the United States and do not have any other country's information on them nor is there any information on how to find military records in other countries.

Deed index: ditto all the above.

While there is SOME helpful information in this book and a few worth-while pointers, you'd be better off purchasing a book that deals with your country of research or searching the web for freebie sites that have the appropriate forms on them.

Emily Croom's Unpuzzling Your Past Workbook provides many forms for recording genealogical research. In addition, she gives examples of how to use the forms by filling them out herself to show what information should be noted and how to write it down so that you can refer back to it and not wonder what your notes mean. There are many sources of genealogical research information, but Emily does a splendid job of covering all the important topics. And the forms can be duplicated whenever new copies of them are needed. She has very thoughtfully organized her forms so that a person following her research suggestions will have, after any length of time, a great resource for turning the completed forms into a written family history. I wish that I had a copy of this book at the very beginning of my research.

I bought this book based on raving recommendations in a genealogy book. I was having trouble managing all my materials and thought this would give me some new forms for things I was struggling with (like passenger lists). Instead, I got a lot of standard forms that I already had. I expected a better selection of forms instead of many copies of one form.

This book was recommended to me and even told I could find it on Amazon. I did so quickly and it is a large help to me.

Makes available multiple worksheets for recording your research if you do not have copying machines readily available. Offers means of organizing findings. Good investment to further one's research and companion to the text book of the same name.