Here is a list of some of the books I have read or am reading that I have found useful or educational in my genealogy research.\u00a0 They include both non-fiction and fiction but no standard genealogy reference books.\u00a0 I have done reviews on several of these.\u00a0 All of them have been readily available through my local library and the various consortiums it is a member of.\u00a0 I love being able to request a book and pick it up at my library!\u00a0 There are other books that are not (yet) on this list, mostly very specific histories of a place as well as some I have forgotten to include.<\/p>\n
My plan in making this a page is to keep adding to it as I discover books or remember one, especially those that contribute to my understanding of the context for a family or person.\u00a0 Eventually I may categorize the listings in some way, or separate them into fiction and nonfiction, but for the moment I am listing them in alphabetical order by author:<\/p>\n
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Brown, Daniel.\u00a0 The Boys in the Boat.\u00a0 Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.<\/span>\u00a0 This tells the story of the University of Washington 8-oar crew that went to Berlin, and the back stories of the rowers, the coaches, the boat-builder, and Washington state in the early 1930s.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fremont, Helen.\u00a0 After Long Silence<\/span>.\u00a0 One of the first books I read after I started researching my husband’s family lines.\u00a0 It is non-fiction with names changed.\u00a0 It tells the story (not so uncommon) of a woman who grew up thinking her parents were Catholics and only discovered as a young woman that they had been Jewish.\u00a0 It is a memoir, a story of a long-held secret and silences that her parents did not want told.\u00a0 The author and her sister felt they had to know, and so went looking for what they could find.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Godges, John Paul.\u00a0 Oh, Beautiful: An American Family in the 20th Century<\/span>.\u00a0 The story of an immigrant family from Italy who came starting to America in the early 1900s and another from Poland who came a couple of decades later.\u00a0 These two very different families were merged with the marriage of a Polish son and an Italian daughter.\u00a0 These two proceeded to build a solid family together, despite their differences.\u00a0 This was a book recommended by Lisa Louise Cooke on her podcast; she liked it so much and raved about it to the point I had to read it for myself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gup, Ted.\u00a0 A Secret Gift.<\/span>\u00a0 This tells how a man (Gup, a journalist) found a suitcase full of letters which had been written in 1933 in Canton, Ohio in response to a newspaper offer a week before Christmas to financially aid 50-75 families in need.\u00a0 Canton had been slammed by the Great Depression and the letters provided great detail about what families were experiencing.\u00a0 It turned out that the mystery man who had made the offer was Gup’s grandfather and there is a lot of his family history here.\u00a0 I didn’t do a full review of this one, but did write a little about it in this post<\/a> about the Great Depression in Canton.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kline, Christina Baker.\u00a0 Orphan Train.<\/span>\u00a0 Story of an old woman who had been an orphan train rider as a young girl, and a teenage girl who is about to age out of the welfare system, and the relationship they dievelop.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Laskin, David.\u00a0 The Family.\u00a0 Three Journeys into the Heart of the Twentieth Century<\/span>– I did a review, here<\/a>.\u00a0 This book taught me about why young Jews in Europe in the late 1890s-early 1900s traveled to Palestine and stayed.\u00a0 It also showed me a lot of other things about the Jewish experience.\u00a0 I’m still trying to get Genealogygal Judy to read this one – I’d love her opinion about it!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Luxenberg, Steve.\u00a0 Annie’s Ghosts<\/a> – I did a brief notice about this book as my first post<\/a>.\u00a0 I found it a powerful story of earlier attitudes toward mental health problems, and a good report about the work it took to find the truth.\u00a0 (Hint: mental health records are very difficult to get your hands on.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Marcus, William.\u00a0 A Place That Lives Only in Memory.\u00a0 The Old Jewish Neighborhood of Syracuse, New York.<\/span>\u00a0 This is a history in words and pictures of a specific place and time; the title says it all.\u00a0 This book is the exception to being easily available locally: I ordered it from the Onondaga Historical Association which is the only place to get it as far as I know.\u00a0 Worth having or at least reading for those who have Jewish roots in Syracuse.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Shavit, Ari.\u00a0 My Promised Land.\u00a0 The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel.<\/span>\u00a0 This provides a history of the state of Israel from before it was a state up to current times.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n