With over 200,000 digitized genealogy and family history publications, FamilySearch.org, has the archives of some of the most important family history libraries in the world. The collection includes family histories, county and local histories, genealogy magazines and how-to-books, gazetteers, and medieval histories and pedigrees.
The FamilySearch.org has connections with about a dozen libraries with massive collections of family histories. There is a search box to assist in locating what is available relating to your family names.
Place a keyword or surname in the search box. Add with the surname or a state name to help narrow the search. Keep in mind sources may come up with a surname match but that is the person who wrote the book, which is good to know.
In the search there are different formats depending on the extent of the material. Larger items will be in PDF format. In large documents you can use a ‘find’ with the PDF or with your computer to locate where in the document is a hometown or surname.
The search also has an advance search box which can help narrow a search based on a time frame. Do try a search with an ancestral hometown or county name.
Some of the documents can only be viewed at a local Family History Center, but once you call up a document of interest, it will inform you of those cases.
The sources vary from books done by individuals to genealogical and historical societies, DAR sources, collections of indexes of birth-marriage and death records, cemetery records, notable individuals in a hometown, etc. You could be very surprised at what is available and being added to monthly.
It is worth investigating what is available with the free FamilySearch.org books, etc.
Photos: Index down-loadable of marriages in Frederick County, MD 1811-1840.
Related FamilyTree.com genealogy blogs:
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