"... this is a well-written and rich resource". -- School Library Journal review of A Student's Guide to British American Genealogy

This groundbreaking series is the first to explain the "how-to's" of genealogical research in simple, jargon-free language. The Oryx American Family Tree Series explores how to research family history for 12 different ethnic groups. Each volume begins with an overview of the group's historical and cultural background, then guides readers through each step in tracing their own genealogical heritage, with practical advice on how to
-- locate important family documents and other vital sources of information
-- conduct interviews with family members and record eyewitness accounts of key events
-- use the latest electronic research tools
-- research your background if you are adopted or come from a nontraditional family
-- preserve family history for future generations

Each volume is written in a friendly, narrative style and is extensively illustrated with full-color and black-and-white photographs. Hundreds of valuable resources unique to each ethnic group are also listed and annotated, including genealogical organizations, books, magazines, journals, videos, and special libraries and archives.

The Oryx American Family Tree Series provides an easy-to-follow road map for anyone interested in tracing a family history -- from junior high and high school students to adults who require a basic primer. Every library will want to make this practical, highly readable series available to its patrons.

Each volume is produced as a sturdy 6 x 9 casebound publication, 192 pages, and printed on acid-free paper.

This major contribution to young adult genealogy studies helps create ethnic pride, self-esteem, and awareness of the extraordinary accomplishments each ethnic group has brought to the American experience. Designed for use in grades 6-12, this important series explores the creation of the American people while promoting the use and understanding of solid research techniques. Oryx American Family Tree Series enhances the social studies curriculum, especially the thematic strands in the New Curriculum Standards for Social Studies.

This is the story of the Lally family between 1818 and 1848. It could just as easily be your story if you have ancestors who were among over a million people who left the beautiful and tragic land of Ireland in the 1840s. This family lived in the Loughrea area, County Galway, Ireland, and their story is similar to that of so many Irish families as they struggled against the odds, were overwhelmed by the tragedy of the Great Famine, and were forced to leave their beloved homeland. This book explores how the Irish lived at this time, how they thought, and the reasons for their situation in Ireland. It brings together the many strands of Irish society and the economics, politics, and philosophy that dominated their lives. It describes the terrible journeys that members of the family undertook to reach England, America, Canada, and Australia.

A Mind of Her Own: Helen Connor Laird and Family, 1888 - 1982 captures the public achievement and private pain of a remarkable Wisconsin woman and her family, whose interests and influence extended well beyond the borders of the state. The eldest child of William Duncan Connor, a major figure in Wisconsin's emerging hardwood lumber industry and its turbulent turn-of-the-century political scene, Helen Connor Laird spent almost her entire ninety-three years in central and northern Wisconsin. Nevertheless, her voracious reading and probing mind connected her to the world. Her early life in frontier communities, home influences, Presbyterian background, and education, as well as the talents she recognized in herself, impelled her to lead. Marriage, duty, and four sons did not stem that desire. By the time her third child, Melvin R Laird Jr, became secretary of defense in 1969, she had served in leadership positions in her community, district, and state. While business absorbed her competitive family, her own interests lay elsewhere: in politics and education. Throughout her life, she kept records of the evolving world she and her family inhabited, and of her own emotional states. ""Remember, we are all lonely,"" the ""closet poet"" said. Spanning almost a century, the family's history speaks to the way we were and are: a stridently materialistic nation with a deep and persistent spiritual component.

Fritz and Annie Lippe Family--German Cotton Farmers in Early 1900s Texas describes the childhood of Fritz and Annie beside the Brazos River in east Texas, their families' move west, their courtship and marriage, and the rearing of their eleven children on rented farms. In some years, the cotton crop was profitable. In other years, drought, boll weevils, or floods destroyed the crop. The children missed the first few weeks of school in the fall because picking the cotton took priority over education. The family raised most of their own food--vegetables from the garden; hogs for meat, lard, and soap; cattle for meat, milk and butter; and chickens for meat and eggs. They grew corn, grinding it into cornmeal to make bread. Money from the cotton sale was used to buy the few items that were not made or grown, such as coffee, sugar, and farm tools. Their many narrow escapes from death due to accidents, injuries, and illnesses are described here. It is amazing that all of the children lived to adulthood. Annie almost died after giving birth to one of the younger children, but she recovered and lived to the age of 103. Every Lippe son and son-in-law served in the military, some of them during World War II, some in combat. All returned safely. Several grandchildren and their spouses also served. Eight of the eleven children and the wives of two deceased sons contributed photographs and stories of life on the family farms. The author inherited many letters and photos from her mother, who was Fritz and Annie's eldest daughter. The book also contains stories of Fritz and Annie's children as adults. They all became hardworking solid citizens and remained true to the faith in God instilled in them by their parents.

This study analyzes the family life and public careers of six generations of a notable Parisian family, the Cochins. Bourgeois merchants in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Cochins earned nobility through the office of alderman (" DEGREESD'echevin") of Paris. Their family ethos fostered a much-needed element in French public life: a cautious, critical, liberal reform that reflected an independence from the Left, the Legitimist--and later nationalist--Right, as well as the Catholic Church. Still, even these reforming conservatives, however liberal, ultimately found themselves opposing the Third Republic.

Winnie highlights the contributions made by the Cochins and the opposition of the Third Republic. He approaches this task not by looking at a mere series of political crises, but rather by examining the cultural background and the family ethos that sustained them from the Old Regime to World War I. Like much of the latest work in modern French social history, this book finds a significant cultural divide between revolutionary republicanism and even liberal notables from the Old Regime. It demonstrates how these tensions continued through the 19th and into the 20th century. This reflects the fundamental incompatibility between France's political legacies--sustained by powerful and abiding social and cultural factors--that has shaped French life to this day.

The story of a murder and its aftermath. On Christmas Night in 1881, John Manley, a poor son of Irish immigrants living in the slums of Leeds, was fatally stabbed in a drunken quarrel. The frightened murderer went on the run, knowing that capture could see him hang. A few generations later, author Catherine Czerkawska begins to tease out the truth behind her great-great-uncle's tragic death. But she uncovers far more than she bargained for. In a personal family story that takes us from Ireland to the industrial heartlands of England and Scotland, from the nineteenth century to the twentieth, Catherine gives voice to people often maligned by society and silenced by history - immigrants, women, the working classes. She unearths a tale of injustice and poverty, hope and resilience, and she is both angered and touched by what she finds. Catherine is driven to keep digging, to get to the very heart of life - and death - in the not-so-distant past.