One feature that I have recently discovered is the Family History Book search (no account is needed to search). It is a wonderful resource for anyone wanting to learn more about a time period, an area of the world, or looking for a family history. By their own description, "Family History Books is a collection of more than 80,000 digitized genealogy and family history publications from 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."
You can get to this feature by going to books.familysearch.org, clicking on the "Search" button along the top and then the "Books" button in the submenu (see the green highlight on the picture above), or click HERE Once there you can type anything that you are curious about. When I type "Swain" in the search engine, I get 1,212 hits of books that mention Swains. If I want to get more focused and look for information about "Swains of Nantucket" I get 92 records, including the much desired "Swains of Nantucket: Tales and Trails" by Robert H. Swain.
Not all books are available digitally, but luckily "Swains of Nantucket: Tales and Trails" can be read at home, in the comfort of my own couch. AND!!! if I right click with my mouse, I can "Save as" and all of a sudden I have my own digital copy of the book saved on my computer! How great is that!
What results did you get putting your family name in the search engine? Did you find anything of value to you?
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