Customer Reviews

Who's Your Hoosier Ancestor?: Genealogy for Beginners

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Clear and accessible, this Indiana specialist covers so much information that it is useful for both beginners and old hands. No internet here, but quite a few resources with addresses. (Many are now on the net, so you may be able to avoid some of the agony of putting pen to paper.) Very comprehensive, but in only 217 pages (including notes, bibliography, suggested readings, index, and a few black and whites), some topics are only touched on. You can always supplement with such specialized books as the <Abstracts of the Records of the Society of Friends in Indiana> by the Indiana Historical Society. Chapters include history, the land, natives, boundaries, emigrant trails, who the emigrants were, military, church and cemetery, census, county histories, and more, including basic research principles. There's an excellent gallup through county records, which almost painlessly explains many abstruse goodies such as deed records, antenuptial contracts, ministers' returns, etc. There's also information about what is and is not available or useful, and why.

I was researching my ancestry online, and found this book to be a very interesting and useful companion. As I found ancestors, I used this book to learn a little bit more about what life was like where they lived during their lifetime. I now have a list of options to research that is specific to Indiana. I think it would have taken me a great deal more time to do this research online had I not had the guidance of "Who's Your Hoosier Ancestor?"