FamilySearch Books reality check

On Monday the FamilySearch blog announced that "more than 100,000 books have now been scanned and published online" at their book search site. As the result of a partnership among eight libraries, "Family History Books are available to search and use on the FamilySearch.org website and can be viewed by clicking Search and then clicking Books."

I thought, I've neglected this resource too long, and promptly searched for the exact phrase "Joseph Wilkinson." There were 39 hits, sorted by relevance.

The first and presumably most relevant hit was not available: "You do not have sufficient rights to view requested object. This book is restricted; it can only be used in the Family History Library, a family history center, or one of the listed partner libraries."

The second most relevant book was so poorly digitized as to be barely readable. Evidently the search function felt the same, as it was not possible to search within the book at all.

Fortunately I live near one of the partner libraries and will be able to consult both books in the old-fashioned way.

Make that 99,998.






Harold Henderson, "FamilySearch Books reality check," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 7 August 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Digital Book Index

Do you need more books than you can afford? Check out the Digital Book Index. I like to browse by subject (even though some headings are idiosyncratic), but it's all good. (Hat tip to Kathleen Lenerz on the APG Rootsweb mailing list.)

Under the subject heading "Local-Regional: Mid-West: Wisconsin," four pages of books are listed (in small font) including the 1889 Plat Book of Outagamie County Wisconsin (via the University of Wisconsin), Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie's 1873 Wau-Bun: The Early Day in the North-West, (via the Library of Congress), and Albert Hart Sanford's 1908 The Polish People of Portage County (via Harvard).

Under the subject heading "Economic Hist: City Business & Commercial Directories," you can find city directories from Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Fond du Lac, Milwaukee, and Steubenville, as well as quite a few from Pittsburgh and Hannibal (not necessarily listed together, however -- you have to do some work!).

All online. Almost all free. You may go down and not surface for a week or two, but it'll be worth it.

Hathi Trust: better than Google?

Aren't descendants great? My son reads blogs I don't know about and discovers an alternative to Google Book Search that offers more full-text digital book images than Google does: Hathi Trust, which resides in Mirlyn, the University of Michigan's online catalog. I found that Google offers only snippet views of The Older Middle West by Henry Clyde Hubbart, whereas at Hathi Trust I could (but didn't) read the whole thing.

Apparently you can also sign up and create public collections of Hathi Trust books. No one has done "genealogy" yet, but there are hundreds of old genealogies digitized here. Caveat lector -- check out those unsourced puppies, please.