Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Five Reference Books For Beginning Genealogy Researchers

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:

1)  What five reference books (and only 5) would you recommend to a beginning genealogy  researcher to have on their bookshelf?

2)  Share your list of five books) in your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, BlueSky or other social media post.  Leave a link to your post on this blog post to help us find your post.

Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for this SNGF topic.

Here's mine (based on North American research):

1)  Val D. Greenwood's The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy (4th edition):  Arguably the best book ever written on American genealogy, it instructs the researcher in the timeless principles of genealogical research, while identifying the most current classes of records and research tools.

2)  Christine Rose's Courthouse Research for Family Historians: Your Guide to Genealogical Treasures: 2nd edition:  The only guidebook devoted exclusively to research in America's courthouses. Full of essentials starting with preparation, interacting with the clerks, using the indexes, and what to expect to find in each courthoiuse office. But it doesn't stop there. Evaluating the records and using them to solve genealogical problems are included. For those who can't travel to the courthouse personally, use of the Internet, microfilm, and published books of abstracts are discussed.

3)  E. Wade Hone's Land & Property Research in the United States:  This is the most comprehensive and useful review of land and property research for genealogists. When early settlers left their homelands to start a new life in America, they had dreams of owning their own land a prospering from their own efforts. They were suspicious of all forms of government and did their best, in many cases, to be invisible to a variety of record keepers. But when it came to ensuring that their precious land was, without doubt, their own, they were careful to provide all of the information requested of them by the various government agencies. 

4)  Emily Anne Croom's The Sleuth Book for Genealogists: Become a genealogy detective with unique approaches and methods for solving research problems. Case studies and a documentation guide round out this helpful resource.

5)  Elizabeth Shown Mills' Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, 4th Edition:   Evidence Explained is the definitive, go-to guide for those who explore history and seek help with understanding, analyzing, and citing the materials they use. Evidence Explained has two principal uses: it provides citation models for historical sources—especially materials not covered in standard citation guides such as The Chicago Manual of Style. Beyond that, it enables researchers to understand the nature of each source so that evidence they cite can be better interpreted and the accuracy of their conclusions properly appraised.

There are many other books available for specific record types (e.g., vital records, census, church, naturalization, immigration, etc.), local or regional research, family histories, organizing methods, how-to research, Internet searching, documenting research, proof standards, etc.

I equivocated on including Evidence Explained because it is not really a beginner book.  However,  it is absolutely necessary to understand the terminology and processes used to do excellent genealogy research.

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