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Recently, my genealogy cup overflowed when dozens of Family Archives
were added to the Genealogy Library — suddenly, my virtual library
expanded to include wonderful resources like genealogies, marriage records,
land records, wills and probate records, vital records, military records,
and oh, so much more!
Because there is so much information available in the Genealogy Library,
I'm here to take you on a guided tour of what resources are just waiting
for you, and let me tell you, there are a lot of them!
A Guided
Tour of the Library
 The
Genealogy Library is arranged into three basic areas: family books,
the 1850 Census, and historical records. The family books section is
the largest, with more than 3,000 items available. Those categories
are further broken down in to more specific
categories ranging from "History" and "Libraries
and Archives" to "People" and "Places." At
the left, you'll see part of the expanded index for the "Family
Books" section — as you can see, the number of books available
in this section alone would go a long way toward making a very complete
genealogical library!
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The "History" book section of the Genealogy Library
is further divided into sections for Canada, Great Britain, and
the U.S. (including items concerning the American Revolution,
Civil War, War of 1812, Massachusetts, and North Carolina).
The "Libraries and Archives" section contains bibliographic
items; the "Magazine and Newspapers" section contains
items arranged by topics: Georgia and southern states magazines,
as well as subjects that fall under the domain of newspapers —
Kansas, marriages, obituaries, and wedding anniversaries.
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The
Genealogy Library is arranged into three basic areas
— family
books, the
1850 Census, and historical records.
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By far the largest number of books in the Genealogy Library falls in
the "People" category. There you will find biographies and
autobiographies as well as books for specific ethnic and religious groups
(for example, Native Americans, Huguenots, Mayflower, and Quakers)
You'll also find genealogies concentrating on families from specific
states such as Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia. But the greatest
number of books can be found for specific surnames — at the time
of my visit, there were over 1700 surname-specific books. In addition,
there are more than 200 books on locations, most of which are in the
United States.
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The final (and second largest) section of books features tons
of records — everything from Bible collections to birth records,
cemetery records, census records, church records, colonial lists,
court records, military records, tax records, and vital records.
There are more than 900 items available in the records category,
including some very helpful census indexes.
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Records
range from Bible collections and birth records to
census records and court records.
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I have a concern about the indexes — the sources of data are not
given anywhere in the book. For example, the title page for the 1860
Maine census index states only: "1860 ME Census Index. This book contains
the census index for ME. The individual's last name, first name, locality,
and census page number are included. Some entries also indicate the
number and age of household inhabitants." It would be nice to know where
this data came from.
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How
to Search the Library
A
word about searching the items available at the Genealogy Library:
in all sections of the Library, you can search for one or all
of three items: specific text (keywords), and individual's first
name, or surname. In addition to a subject directory, there is
also an index of keywords, but the most promising tool, the "Search
All Books" function, is limited in its keyword search.You
can include multiple keywords, but there is no searching for exact
phrases, or use of Boolean logic (AND is an automatic search term,
but you cannot exclude items using OR; you must do multiple searches
instead). The other drawback I found was that it was impossible
to search one particular book unless the full title of the book
was included as part of the keywords. It made for some awkward
searching, but it can be done. These are two of the things I found
lacking in the Genealogy Library, but diligent researchers will
find it relatively easy to refine their search techniques to accommodate
the Genealogy Library search engine.
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How to
Use the Books in the Library
Genealogies
You might be asking what exactly the online books look like, and how
you use them. As those of you who've read my Family Archive reviews
know, I'm always searching for ALLERTON information, and luckily, the
Genealogy Library contains a book devoted solely
to the ALLERTON family.
There are two ways to use the books in the Genealogy Library —
you can either search them for specific text, or you can browse through
them page by page. At the bottom of each book screen, links are available
that will take you to the previous page, next page, the book's beginning,
or a search screen. You can also enter a specific page number and go
directly to that page — a very handy tool to have when you are
reading or printing your way through a book.
 The
books in the Genealogy Library are transcribed
copies, not digital images of the originals (the exception are the
books that appear in the Family Archives section), and thus you must
rely on someone else's version of the book. In addition, no images (photographs,
graphics, maps, etc.) from the books are included. Those are two big
drawbacks, but they are easily overcome by using the bibliographic information
to locate a copy of the original book yourself if you desire more information
or want to look at the images not included in the Genealogy Library
version. As always, you should verify any information you find with
as many other sources as possible.
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Printing sections of the books is easy — you can either
print directly from your web browser, or, if you want to print
just a paragraph or section, you can copy the text and paste it
into a text editor or word processor.
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You
can either search them for specific text or browse
through them page by page.
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1850
Census
The second area of the Genealogy Library contains the 1850 census for
the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois,
Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New
Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island,
Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia. All together there are
more than 250,000 images from the census available!
The 1850 censuses on Genealogy Library are unique in that you can search
a census index and once you find an entry you are interested in, you
can click the photo icon and see the actual
digitized image of that census page.
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Search
the 1850 Census
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See
a Census Page Image
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 Once
you have found an image of the actual census page, you can move quickly
to the previous page, the next page, see the second image (if there
is more than one for that particular census page), save the image onto
your hard drive, or view a smaller version of the image so you can print
it. And, since the microfilm roll and page number is given, you can
easily keep tabs of where you found the information.
Historical
Records
The third section of the Genealogy Library is titled "Historical Records,"
but it really contains data from Family Archives collection of data
on CD-ROM that you can search online, and view individual "pages" from
the original volumes found on the CDs. At the time of my visit, the
Family Archive data sets available ranged from AL, AR, FL, LA, MI,
MN, OH, WI, 1790-1907 Land Records and Revolutionary War Pension
Lists to marriage indexes for Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts,
New Jersey, and Texas.
An Example
of What You'll Find
If you've ever seen the Family Archives, you know what a wonderful
resource they are, often bringing many hard to find or out of print
books together in a topic-related collection (and for those of you who
are interested what exactly can be found on each of the CDs or the data
sets, each item is linked to an introduction page that lists the resources
found within).
I was particularly delighted to see the National Genealogical Society
Quarterly (NGSQ) had been chosen as one of the Family Archives
to be included in this new venture — this valuable resource (formerly
available only on CD-ROM) should head up all researchers' lists of must-have
items. First, you'll come upon the introductory
page for the NGSQ on Genealogy Library — as you can
see, you can search that specific data set for an individual's first,
middle, or last name. You can also go to the browse
page which also gives you a chance to search the data set, or you
can read the NGSQ's introduction
to see exactly what is in the data set.
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Your
First Look at the NGS Quarterly
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Search
the NGS Quarterly
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Read
the Introduction to the NGS
Quarterly
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My only complaint with the new Family Archives data sets are that you
can only search by individual's names, and not for other text, but it's
a small price to pay to have quick and easy access to so much data.
| Genealogy Library is available yearly (for $49.99),
or on a monthly ($9.99) basis. Considering the thousands of
books available in the library, the entire 1850 census and
census index, and the marvelous resources of the newly available
Family Archives data sets, it's well worth the fee. The Library
is easy enough that new users can utilize it, and yet it has
some fabulous resources that will send experienced researchers
into a swoon. Considering the 7 day money back guarantee that
Genealogy.com offers (Get all the details on their money
back policy), you have enough time to put the Genealogy
Library through its paces without running the risk of investing
a large amount of money in something that won't serve your
research needs, and Genealogy.com states that more books and
Family Archives data sets will be added each month, making
that service more valuable as each month passes! |
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