Continuing my nostalgic run through some resources that are part of my genealogy “go to” bag, let’s now talk about digital books (and more) and my three favorite resources – Internet Archive and HathiTrust and Google Books.
I didn’t realize until writing this article that I’ve not previously done a dedicated piece on HathiTrust. Sacre bleu as the French might say! At least I can spread the word about it now.
These are all excellent resources for digitized books. There are many many books of interest to genealogists and family historians that are now in the public domain. Directories, histories of churches, legislative journals and related, abstracted/transcribed records collections, and much more. These websites all make full digital books available.
HathiTrust and Google Books also give some insight into select books that are either incompletely digitized and/or are not digitized though searchable in a limited fashion. This latter option gives you some insight into a book that might interest you and which you’ll then need to get your hands on physically, either via purchase or interlibrary loan (check out OCLC & Worldcat + FamilySearch Catalog = Very Happy Genealogists!).
If you have not yet visited all three of these sites, stop whatever you are doing, grab a drink, settle in, and just explore. Odds are you will find some tidbit about either your family or community that you didn’t know before.
To learn more about these websites (except HathiTrust as already stated), check out …
· Google Books Wins When Court of Appeals Rejected Author Guild's Copyright Infringement Claim (2015)
· Internet Archive -- still a wonderful and free gem for genealogy and family history researchers! (2012)
What “go to” resources for digitized books do you use regularly as you research your ancestors?
Editor’s Note: Catch up on my posts about some other favorites – Linkpendium, Archivegrid, Death Online, and Jstor .
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