YOUR PERSONAL GENEALOGY LIBRARY:
FAMILY HISTORY BOOKS ONLINE

SUMMARY HANDOUT
©Copyright 2012 by Donald R. Snow and Diane M. Snow
snowd@math.byu.edu & dmsnow34@gmail.com
BYU Conference on Family History and Genealogy -- Thursday, 02 Aug 2012, 11am - noon
Since you got a CD and not a paper syllabus for the Conference this year this handout sheet is a summary of the notes in the BYU Syllabus (Pages 308-311) and the online notes at http://uvtagg.org > Class Outlines > Don Snow's Listings.  The numbers "#" refer to the section numbers in the Syllabus and online notes at present.  The online notes have all the links as active URL's and are updated regularly. 
  1. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION TO THE CLASS (#1-5)
  2. FORMAT OF BOOKS ONLINE (#6-10)
    1. Most are pdf = Portable Document Format
    2. Some websites download the books with the text layer (hence text-searchable) and some do not, e.g. Google does not
    3. Examples of OCR freeware to add the text layer when it's not there
  3.  FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY AND FAMILYSEARCH CATALOG (#11-17)
    1. Examples
    2. Finding all scanned books in FHL
    3. Has pdf text layer so completely searchable when downloaded
  4. GOOGLE BOOKS (#18-22)
    1. Do standard Google search, then click on Books on left-hand side
    2. Can narrow the search by clicking on filters, e.g. "Free Google eBook - Read" - shows pages of the book with search terms highlighted
    3. Downloaded Google books do NOT include the pdf text layer, so not text searchable offline, but can note the pages you want from the online version
    4. Can also OCR the entire book with freeware so you have a text layer too
  5. INTERNET ARCHIVE (#23-28)
    1. Do search for name, place, etc., and find it in any book they have scanned
    2. Much family history information in their 3 million scanned books, but not listed as family history books
    3. Downloaded books do have the pdf text layer and hence are searchable
    4. Internet Archive also sponsors the Wayback Machine - snapshots of the Internet since 1996 -- lots of good information there that has been removed from the Internet since
  6. HERITAGEQUEST ONLINE (#29-32)
    1. Get to it through your local public library or FHC
    2. 28,000 FH books, strong collection in New England and US county and local histories
  7. ADDITIONAL ONLINE FH BOOKS (#33-54)
    1. World Public Library
    2. World Vital Records
    3. Mocavo - do search, then click on Documents on left-hand side
    4. Genealogy Book Links
    5. Many others
  8. ARTICLES AND SEARCH ENGINES FOR FULL-TEXT BOOKS ONLINE (#55-63)
  9. CONCLUSIONS