Genealogy Basics In 30 Minutes review: Author "knows what she's talking about"

Spotted this review on Goodreads for Genealogy Basics In 30 Minutes. Shannon's reputation is well known in the genealogy world, as this reviewer noted:

Even though I've been doing genealogy for more than half my life now, I still love going back and reading "basics" books or attending beginner workshops whenever I can.

There are so many good habits you can reinforce or try to start to build when you just go back to the basics. This book has several good tips on how to get started. I was already familiar with Shannon Combs-Bennett in the genealogy world, so she's definitely someone who knows what she's talking about here.

She does a great job of breaking down the hobby into its simplest parts. It doesn't feel like this book is pushing one specific service or product (except for other "in 30 minutes" books), and she gives a brief overview of what's out there. That said, this pretty much just tells you these sites and products exist; if you are interested in learning more about each of those to make a decision on which to use or how to use them, this isn't the book for that.

This is very much a "do what you can with phone calls and visits to family first, and then eventually you may end up online" approach. Since I received an ARC from NetGalley, I don't know if the final book has an appendix of "where to go from here" recommendations, but I think this book would benefit from something like that.

There are no online search strategy techniques or tips. Also, the record types described in the book are very American-research centered. While some of the same record types exist outside the US, the description of the information contained in them and the release of the census every 72 years is definitely for American researchers.

I do recommend this book to anyone curious about starting the hobby of genealogy. Most of the people I meet who are interested in genealogy have already spent some time dabbling online, and I would say this would also be a good book for those who just started doing that to go back and look for some things they may already have at home or with family members before they end up with regrets of who they missed out on interviewing when they had the chance. Sometimes we forget that a lot of the people we grew up with have the answers we're looking for. We just have to ask them about them.

Thanks, Brittany, for your review!