Four major places (and there are many more, including Worldcat) you can search for genealogy books of interest at home FOR FREE include:
Each of these searches in a different fashion, but each of them have FULL books you can either download or read on line. Just to see what would happen, I took last names of several of our members and people around Ocean Shores generally, and searched. Mostly, I searched "lastname genealogy" and "lastname family history." In the case of Heritagequest, I simply entered "lastname" and required an "exact match." Results overlapped quite a bit between the searches, but different interesting results came up each way.
Anyway, if you are interested in a "quick book search," send an email to
- Google Books - our series about Google Books starts here
- FamilySearch - Michael Dindinger often mentions FamilySearch in his Family History Learning Moments
- Archive dot org - our page about the Internet Archive is here
- HeritageQuest (home use requires a library card or subscription - see places here - including Timberland Libraries)
Each of these searches in a different fashion, but each of them have FULL books you can either download or read on line. Just to see what would happen, I took last names of several of our members and people around Ocean Shores generally, and searched. Mostly, I searched "lastname genealogy" and "lastname family history." In the case of Heritagequest, I simply entered "lastname" and required an "exact match." Results overlapped quite a bit between the searches, but different interesting results came up each way.
| Surname | FamilySearch | Archive | HeritageQuest | Interesting Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hummer | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1058 | The Hummer Family |
| Lohrenz | Several | 10 | 1 | 13 | Mennonite Family History |
| Adams | Thousands | Thousands | 810 | 198330 | Homer Quincy Adams (1918-1994) |
| Dindinger | Several | Hundreds | 0 | 22 | History of Butler County, Pennsylvania |
| Coone | Hundreds | Hundreds | 0 | 162 | New York in the Revolution... |
| Westfall | Dozens | Hundreds | 1 | 3564 | Westfall Family: Who's Who in America |
| Averill | Hundreds | Hundreds | 25 | 6286 | Margaret Bready Genealogy Collection |
| Samuels | Depends | Depends | Depends | 5069 | A History of Crawford County, Indiana |
| Broadbent | Hundreds | Dozens | 0 | 1025 | The World Book of Broadbents |
Anyway, if you are interested in a "quick book search," send an email to
And let me know which surname you'd like to see. Adding a few details such as locations of interest and added family connections can make the search infinitely more valuable. I'll email back results.
