Periodically search GoogleBooks for all your ancestors. If my British convict ancestor from 1764 can appear in a book discussing the penal system in 18th century England, then there’s a chance that others will as well as the site includes digital images of a variety of items, including county histories, regional directories, occupational directories, occupational publications, religious periodicals, etc. GoogleBooks does periodically update so consider adding it to your list of materials to take an occasional look at.
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5 Responses
My wife’s Swiss ancestor from 1819 was found in a book published in Germany in 1822 in the German version of Google books, books.google.de, by randomly entering various spellings and name combinations and 1819. (The year happened to be in the title.)
The book turned out to be 989 pages describing the journey. It has led to many other discoveries, one leading to the other.
Ernie Thode
Is there a special address for Irish ancestors? Our ggf supposedly came with four other brothers thru Canada and he got a land grant in Wisconsin in 1845. Have that copy but nothing more.
As I work on applications for a lineage society, this is one of the first things I do. You can also do a check at familysearch for books to search. There are often texts available online because they are out of copyright.
That’s a good reminder as well.
Very good point. Never thought about that. Thank you.