Google Your Family

Googling for your family can reap some huge rewards towards unlocking mysteries in your research. Recently, a book was published by Daniel M. Lynch titled "Google Your Family Tree". I immediately purchased it so that I can learn how to drill down and better filter my searches. I received the book just before the holidays and haven't had a chance to get very far with it. What a wealth of information it contains! Everything from a simple search to using Google Maps. I cannot wait to get deeper into this. Google Books is another excellent way to delve into finding your ancestors in obscure places which the author explains on page 103. I have used this feature for some time now and it is constantly being added to. Of course, copyright laws inhibit full views, but you can locate the repositories of where you might locate a book of interest. Perhaps your local library can obtain you a copy through inter library loan. Sometimes snippet views are listed or partial pages. Full views are books that the copyrights have expired which leads to a big bonus. I have had huge successes with my research and have found my ancestors in various places that I am sure would have been overlooked. Case in point: ancestor John Tillman died in 1826 and left a will in Warren County, New Jersey listing all of his heirs. A book published called "Acts of the Legislature of the State of New Jersey" recalls a case 10 years later in 1836 where the heirs are petitioning the court to allow them to sell the land that was left to the widow due to hardships. They won their case, but the huge piece of information that was obtained in this article was the full family listing of names and relationships and a death of one of the heirs which would have never been recorded anywhere else. If I hadn't located the will originally, this would have been that breakthrough we are all looking for. It's another piece of that evidence to prove our families accurately or steer you into the original records. Subsequently, I have located other court cases with other ancestors and a Biography of my ancestor, Andrew Smalley that mentions and confirms my suspicions of who his parents are. All in all, you can learn a lot and find information that most likely you would have never found otherwise.