If you wanted to piece together the story of an ancestor who lived in the mid 1800s, where would you turn if you had no information other than a first and last name?
Certainly, online databases might help with basic framing: Close family members, place of birth, migration across state lines or international borders, and the location of headstones. If the ancestor was male, draft cards, service rosters, and voter rolls might provide additional facts.
Newspaper archives might fill in even more details: Announcements, obituaries, interviews, accidents, notable court cases, and patterns of local life at the time.
After these avenues have been exhausted, there’s another important resource that can help tell the story of your 19th-century ancestor: local history books and memoirs.
Local history books and memoirs can paint a picture of life from a long-forgotten place and time. Some may even describe ancestors, or ancestors’ relatives. Using some of the titles below, I’ve been able to get answers to “why” questions about employment and migration from the authors of such works that would have been difficult to research on my own, especially for places overseas that are difficult to travel to.
Here’s an excerpt from an 1878 “who’s who” in central New York, with the grand title of History of Monroe County, New York: With Illustrations Descriptive of Its Scenery, Palatial Residences, Public Buildings, Fine Blocks and Important Manufactories, from Original Sketches by Artists of the Highest Ability:
“[Preston] Smith was from West Springfield, and settled in his then wild home when a dozen families comprised the population. [Gideon] Cobb was a native of Vermont, a peddler of scythes, axes, and, for a time, hollow-ware. He made his home at Rochester in 1813, during which year he established the first public conveyance Rochester ever had, and ran it in fine style for more than two years. It was a vehicle drawn by two yoke of oxen, driven by himself, and made a trip semi-weekly between the village and the landing.”
If you were descended from the Cobbs or the Smiths, wouldn’t those be wonderful genealogy stories to preserve?
How to find out-of-print local history books
The quality of local histories is inconsistent. Sometimes the writers and editors are very skilled. At other times there is no editor involved, particularly for self-published works. Dates may be off, and names may be misspelt. This may require additional fact-checking or talking with local historians to provide more context.
The books are often rare or out of print. Because they are so local, not many copies are printed, and you may have to dig deep to find copies in a local library or eBay. Fortunately, PDF downloads may be available from the following sources:
- Internet Archive
- Library of Congress
- FamilySearch
- State archives
- Academic research centers
Another source: Images of America. Arcadia Publishing has thousands of guides, all containing wonderful photographs and historical context.
We’ve also found local historical societies to be a goldmine. They may have rare memoirs or out-of-print histories in their collections, or may sell copies of more recent histories. For instance, the Calumet County Historical Society has a half-dozen local histories available for sale on its website.
