The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy by Val D. Greenwood is the textbook of choice for many college and university genealogy courses. This book has been around for quite sometime. The new edition (copyright 2000) has added much additional information having to do with new resources and technologies for the genealogist, particularly information about the internet. I decided to buy the newer version because I had frequently used the old version (copyright 1973) and had found the book to be a valuable help in doing genealogy research. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with Greenwood's treatment of genealogical research and the internet in this newer version. I believe Karen Clifford's book The Complete Beginner's Guide to Genealogy, The Internet, and Your Genealogy Program is a much better resource for learning how to do genealogy research -- especially when using the internet. Val's book would be of best help to someone doing traditional paper record searches.

Greenwood begins by helping us to generally understand genealogical research. In the First Chapter he provides a diagram of the process and explains some good habits for successful researching.

Chapter 2 - Familiar Record Practices
Chapter 2 describes the problems you might encounter when viewing original records, for instance, encountering unfamiliar terms and abbreviations, and problems with attempting to read handwritten documents.

Chapter 3 - Analysing the Pedigree and the Place
This Chapter covers what is traditionally called the Preliminary Survey. Once again I was disappointed because, when discussing compiled sources available on the internet, Val only mentions the 295 million records the LDS church has put online and completely neglects to mention the 220 million available at MyTrees.com MyTrees.com and the millions of other records available on various other sites, like Origins.net, Burke's Peerage, Genealogy.com, Ancestry, etc.

Chapter 4 - Evaluation of Evidence
This chapter teaches how to judge if the sources for our genealogy research are reliable, relevant, and complete. Did the research include all sources that a reasonably knowledgeable genealogist would have included?

Chapter 5 - An Introduction to Research Tools: The Library
The main focus of this chapter is information to help you to use the library catalogues for locating materials in almost any library.

Chapter 6 - An Introduction to Research Tools: Reference Materials
Greenwood categorizes the various genealogical reference materials and then lists many of them.

Chapter 7 - Organizing and Evaluating Research Findings
This chapter suggests various systems for keeping your research notes and sources.

Chapter 8 - Successful Correspondence
Since writing letters is my greatest challenge I found this chapter to be particularly helpful.

Chapter 9 - Computers in Genealogy
I was disappointed by this chapter. Greenwood should have gotten some help when attempting to write this subject. It did not provide much relevant help with regard to using the internet to do genealogical research nor did it provide information about the excellent genealogy programs that can be used to organize and store your research findings and pedigrees In the section "Searching Databases." Aside from the LDS Church website he mentions one website that I personally know has been out of commission for at least 3 years, and another that has a very minor list of databases on it. He does not include the three largest genealogy sites, one of which is MyTrees.com.

Another link that he mentions, HYTELNET, is no longer being maintained and none of the links are active. The HYTELNET website does provide a link to a possible alternative website Libdex -- the library directory. This alternative website provides links for finding library homepages and online searchable library catalogues.

Chapter 10 - Family History: Going Beyond Genealogy
I wasn't sure what the purpose of this chapter was. Perhaps it is to encourage us to gain more than just the names, dates, and places of our ancestors and to truly get to know them and their history.

Part 2 - "Records and Their Use" Encompasses the remaining chapters of the book.
This, I believe, is the most useful part of this book, remembering, however, that the book does not really list relevant internet sources for these records. Val does a good job of explaining the resources a genealogist should reference in his research. He also provides helpful charts that indicate what records were kept and when they were kept, for instance, Figure 1 is a chart of "Important Dates in the History of Birth and Death Registrations in the United States" and Chart 4 is the "Availability of Cen sus Mortality Schedules."

The records and topics he covers in Chapters 11 through 27 are:

• Compiled Sources and Newspapers
• Vital Records
• Census Returns
• Probate Records
• Wills
• The In testate and Guardianships
• Government Land
• Local Land Records
• Abstracting Wills and Deeds
• Court Records
• Property Rights of Women
• Church Records
• Immigrations records
• Military records
• Cemetery and Burial Records

As a basic "learn how to do genealogy" book I think that The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy, 3rd Edition by Val D. Greenwood provides a good foundation. It certainly instructs the researcher in the principles of genealogical research and identifies the various classes of records used in that research. The author then evaluates each of the records in the context of the research process. This book is both a textbook and an all-purpose reference book for traditional paper record research. Back i n the 1980s or early 1990s it might have been the only book you would have needed to become a competent researcher. However, today, in light of the availability of so many technological advances and resources, this book is not complete enough. Other books will be needed to cover the subjects of Genealogy research using the Computer. The subjects which needed significantly more information were researching databases and genealogy records on the internet, researching using CDROM databases, and using geneal ogy software for recording and organizing genealogy research.

To purchase a copy of this book click here: The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy, 3rd Edition by Val D. Greenwood.