Finding Published Family History Books



FamilySearch.org has collected some 40,000 digital family history books along with periodicals and gazettes all relating to genealogy and individual family research. This makes it very simple to locate, read and even download the material if you desire.

The seven sources for this collection range from the Allen County Public Library, to Brigham Young University Library to the Houston Public Library. These large institutions cover many different family histories, not just from their local area.

You can search using a surname, a hometown, a region (such as a county name), or anything related to a certain historical event. When you find a document of interest, click on it and the full scanned page or pages will appear. You can then scroll down the pages to read the material.

An example of a family history is the James Mayhew Family from Prince George’s County in Maryland. This account gives who did the research and wrote the material and the date. The provider started with the first James Mayhew with a written document, a recorded Will, of August 25, 1742 in Maryland. The entire history is 145 pages with a full index. If this was an ancestor in your family, it would be invaluable resource. Many of the family histories will include photos and copies of other records. Another big addition is that most will include their primary or secondary sources.

When doing a search, look also at the hometown or county. Many times an ancestor will be listed in the history of a certain location, but the spelling may be different than what you think it is. For example in Maryland, there is the common spelling of ‘Albaugh’ and the older versions of ‘Allbaugh and ‘Ahlbach’.

Some of the records available include indexed marriage records for a certain area. The collection has books mostly and other printed records.

Put a few names in and see what comes up.

Photo: A portion of the Aull family history – total of 89 pages with an index.

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