The list of such questions is endless. That said, unless\u00a0you’re fortunate enough to contact a living relative who knows the details, or good documentation (such as a family letter or a newspaper account)\u00a0it can be very difficult to find answers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n That’s why I pay very close attention to research published in genealogy books or by local genealogy societies about families or places that have some connection with our own family history.\u00a0Such genealogy books are huge time-savers<\/strong>, as they let genealogists answer questions that would otherwise take untold hours to research.<\/p>\n I am reading one such book now –\u00a0For the Grass of a Cow: Marion Tiernan\u2019s Irish ancestors from County Meath to Saint Lawrence County, New York, 1820\u20131999<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n The author, Charles M. Carletta<\/a>, was seeking to answer\u00a0“why” questions about his own ancestors, and share the answers with his family and descendants.<\/p>\n The author’s easy-to-understand answers apply directly to two branches of my family.\u00a0The book also answered some of the basic “why” questions above<\/strong>, including the one about occupations in the 1880 census (the author notes census enumerators in 1880 were professionals for the first time, and as a result got more accurate answers). Carletta, a retired professor, also included extensive footnotes listing specific shipping and land records, as well as other books and historical resources to follow up with.<\/p>\n Where can you find genealogy books and articles that relate to your own family’s ancestors<\/strong>? Amazon has some titles<\/a>, but we’ve found that specialty publishers and genealogy societies have books and journal articles that can’t be found elsewhere. I have found some great genealogy books at the NEHGS bookstore.<\/a><\/p>\n I have also had luck with the local history rooms at town libraries, as well as small-town historical societies. If you’re planning a genealogy road trip this summer, make plans to visit these repositories!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today I am writing about genealogy books. One of the holy grails for family historians is answering crucial “why” questions about ancestors and the decisions they made: Why did the Pinnix branch of the family move from North Carolina to California? Why did my great-great-grandmother Hanora have a different last name on her son’s marriage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3864,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[40,85172],"class_list":["post-1580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-books","tag-genealogy"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3864"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1583,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions\/1583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"genealogy](\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/files\/2022\/04\/bookstore-shelves-2-amherst-feb-2022.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/lamont\/files\/2022\/04\/book-grass-cow-amazon.jpg\")
<\/a>However, his research also touches topics of interest to\u00a0anyone with 19th-century Irish immigrants and ancestors who settled in this remote area<\/strong>\u00a0of northern New York<\/strong>. He addresses crucial “why” questions that apply to our own research:<\/p>\n\n