In the early 1990s I began my own research through the Internet and Family Tree Maker. I already had Robert Evan's published book on Jacob Gochenour and His Family and Grant Schadle's Ramer family tree research. I wanted to find out about my British roots and my husband's ancestry.
Looking back, my early work was shoddy. I relied on family trees that lacked supporting documentation and my record keeping consisted of saved "Favorites" on the search engine, saved files to my computer, and printed off copies of documents, trees, and other sources.
I later committed to World membership with Ancestry.com and the family tree I have created there is my main source of records keeping.
What I needed at the beginning was a better understanding of family history research. A 'researcher's guide.'
It is massive in size, nearly 800 pages. It is a comprehensive reference book that covers every aspect of family research. Part I addresses Background to Research and Part II Records and Their Use. Greenwood has included illustrations and charts.
The 4th Edition specifically is updated to reflect the new sources available in research provided by the Internet. Greenwood includes overviews of all the major family history websites, including Ancestry, Family Search, Find My Past, and My Heritage, explaining what they offer and how to use them.
As he notes in his Preface, "though it is a great boon to this work, it [the Internet] is still an imperfect tool. Many important records...are not on the Internet." I know this for a fact! I have been the gracious recipient of help from researchers who have visited places I could not and shared their findings with me. A researcher who visited my grandfather's hometown courthouse shared information with me through Ancestry. In this way I discovered my great-grandmother on the 1910 census under a married name--a marriage I was ignorant of!
Greenwood separates family research as a compilation of another's work and true scientific, systematic, documented research. Of course, my early work was merely compilation of other's findings.
I can at least feel good that I have created family trees that includes not just my direct ancestors but their families. Greenwood promotes a complete family as most important. He also urges researchers to consider all the spelling variations.
"Family history...is a "marriage" of sorts between history and genealogy--what seemed like a most unlikely union in years past....Family history also includes...demography, geography, psychology, sociology, and literature." --A Rearcher's Guide
My interest in family history is rooted in my lifelong fascination in history and biographies and understanding the past. When I learned that my great-grandfather Greenwood's nephew died in the Ranua death march during WWII it brought to life a history of which I had been ignorant. When I learn about ancestors who immigrated across Europe to Volyhnia, and note the social and political conflicts they were leaving behind, I realize the root causes of immigration have always been a part of population migration.
There is so much information in Greenwood's book I realized it was not meant to be read it cover to cover. It is a remarkable acheivement.
I received a copy of the book through Book Review Buzz in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
Good instructional guidance is critical to the success of family history research, and this is where The Researcher's Guide is unsurpassed. It is both a textbook and an all-purpose reference book, designed to help the present generation of family history researchers better understand the methods and principles of family history research, and learn how to utilize all available resources. As Val Greenwood writes, "These are our ancestors we are talking about here; we owe it to them to get it right." from the publisher
"Recommended as the most comprehensive how-to book on American genealogical and local history research."—Library Journal
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