I have noticed that for some, they feel that since Grandma has done all of the work finding the names and dates that there is nothing for them to do, so rather than get immersed in the work of family history, they sit on the sidelines and wait. What they don't realize is that someday THEY will be the grandma, and they will have nothing with which to lull their grandchildren in to such a false sense of comfort.
So what do you do if the "work has all been done"? One place to turn is to the history books. Once you know where and when your ancestors lived, it is not a difficult leap to locating a local historical association which may have a boon of information.
Since most US counties have historical associations, to find one, a simple Google search should find it. For example if your family lived in Omigosh County, you could do search for "Omigosh County Historical Association" and that should find it for you. If not, write your senator.
In today's high-fangled new-tech digital age, many large libraries containing county histories are being digitized. Meaning they are taking the old books, many of which are rare with only a few extant copies, and scanning each page and making them available online. I found one page particularly useful for finding this information.
As a closet Grateful Dead fan (no family history related pun intended) I routinely visit the Live Music Archive for free streaming Dead concerts and shows of other great bands. One day while grooving to some Dead I noticed a link at the top for the Text Archive. So I clicked on it and did some searching. I was able to locate very old local histories containing information on my ancestors in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Thank you Jerry!
To use the Text Archive simply follow the link in the Links Section on the right and then type in the county or state you are looking for (remember county boundaries change, so what might be Omigosh county today was once Slackjaw County). Then you can search through the various documents that come up to find which ones are most germane to your search.
The texts are typically old, rare, and out of print. You can download them in a variety of formats, including PDF, Daisy, Kindle, or you can just read online, and best of all they are FREE!
Hint: Downloading the books in PDF allows you to search the entire ebook for certain terms, like your ancestor's last name, to see when and if it comes up. This is a valuable time saver.
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