January 2012 Book Remarks

Reference: Monica McGoldrick is known for groundbreaking research on genograms. In The Genogram Journey: Reconnecting with Your Family (W.W. Norton & Co.), she shows how these “psychological family trees” can reveal a family’s history of estrangement, alliance, divorce or suicide, as well as complex issues of birth order, sibling rivalry and more.

Reference: Nick Barratt’s Guide to Your Ancestors’ Lives (Pen and Sword Family History) takes you on a journey of finding the social history surrounding your ancestors. Barratt encourages you to research houses, streets, communities and ways of life. Although the book focuses on British Isles research, its guidance holds no matter where your ancestors are from.

Memoir: In Mapping Norwood: An Irish American Memoir (University of Massachusetts Press), English and history professor Charles Fanning maps out his family history and its impact on his life. Along with his own coming-of-age story in Norwood, Mass., Fanning examines three ancestors, including one who disappeared in the late 1880s and a post-Famine Irish immigrant from County Monaghan.

Historical Crime: When pieces of a body began to surface on New York City shores in June 1897, officials’ first challenge was identifying the remains. Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars by Paul Collins (Crown Publishers) tells the true story of a sensational trial primarily using rich local newspaper accounts.

From the January 2012 issue of Family Tree Magazine

More great genealogy resources from Family Tree Magazine:

• The Family Tree Sourcebook
• live and recorded expert webinars
• on-demand genealogy classes