For my Moffat genealogy club members, at Thursday’s meeting, I mentioned a small book that I find particularly helpful when I’m doing genealogy work. The book is called The Genealogist’s U.S. History Pocket Reference: Quick Facts & Timelines of American History to Help Understand Your Ancestors by Nancy Hendrickson. I hate to say that even as a history major, I’m absolutely terrible about remembering dates.
This book is so handy and amazing to have on your desk for quick look-ups. When I’m researching an ancestor, I don’t just want to know their birth and death dates. It’s all the stuff in between that’s interesting, right?
This book gives you all kinds of major events, diseases, timelines, charts, wars, songs, foods…. all broken down by era so you can turn to the year you’re looking at for your ancestor and be able to see what they were dancing to, reading, what stars they were watching at the movies, and so on. Lost an ancestor between censuses? Check the book for wars, epidemics like Spanish influenza or major destructive events like the flood that devastated nearly the whole Ohio Valley and displaced near whole entire towns.
So that’s my little quick handy dandy hint for you all! You can get these fairly cheap on Amazon… they’re small and perfect for taking with you on genealogical research trips. If you’re like me and positively awful with remembering dates, do yourself a favor and grab one of these today.
(I’m getting no kickback for recommending this book. This is my honest opinion and I bought my own book. I wasn’t paid to say any of this.)