Family Tree Factbook is a great resource for tracing genealogy. The book is an American resource so not really as useful for UK researchers but it still has some great checklists and information for any amateur family historian.

This is a great resource from the editors of Family Tree Magazine. It includes lots of information on DNA tests, a list of the best genealogy websites, and plenty of tips for the beginning to intermediate genealogy researcher. I found it very useful!

I've been interested in researching my family history for years. Since I've begun to work on a memoir, my need for more information and details has grown greater. There are family myths I need to look into and dead ends I'd like to look at again. This book has offered me more help than I had hoped! All the resources and tips are given in easy to understand terms. It's all straightforward and user friendly, which I appreciate because these can be emotionally difficult tasks at times. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has started looking into their ancestry, or is curious about it. Don't be overwhelmed by all the details and info, not all of it will pertain, but I I bet you will be able to find guidance here no matter your question!

I was interested in this book as I have been working on my family tree for many years and am always open to new hints, tips and ways of working to help me in my quest! The book looks great with a cover that really draws you in. As soon as I started to read the index, I discovered that this book is very much aimed at the American market – which is great if you are from the UK and find that you have American roots, which sadly I don’t.

There were some parts of the book that are generic no matter where you are in the world – the 20 questions to ask your relatives I found particularly useful and wished I’d had something like this when I had first started out on my tree. Unfortunately now I don’t have many family left from the generations that would be useful to find this information from! There are lots of interesting hints and tips though on things such as deciphering old fonts and how to calculate how you are related to someone, as well as checklists and worksheets.

Unfortunately, so much of the book was to do with American facts, figures, statistics and information that it is just pointless us Brits even looking at them (I did have to chuckle at the checklist including “bastardy cases” as in all my years researching my tree I’ve never come across anything like that). A useful book if you happen to be tracing your American relatives, or you are indeed American yourself. Would be great to have a British version though!

Genealogy is one of the most popular hobbies in the U.S. Personally I have been looking into various branches of my family history for decades. This has caused me to amass a great deal of paperwork, charts and genealogy related source books. It’s always nice to look over a genealogy reference book and find new tips and resources.

The Family Tree Factbook is great resource book for the beginner with a wealth of information, web links, physical addresses, suggestions and keys to acronyms. This isn’t only a good reference for beginners as I saw some great links I will be checking out, not that I'm a professional by any means but I have been researching and collecting for over 30 years. This book it points you in the right direction. This is more for the United States researcher and not as much for those researching other countries.

What I would change about the publication: I would like to see a few photos or charts but that’s my personal preference. Also, in the Kindle version I received you can’t search the table of contents. The subjects are listed in the beginning of the book but there isn’t a corresponding page to search. As you go through the book I know you can bookmark specific pages of interest but a searchable table of contents would be helpful.

Overall I would recommend this book for someone deeply involved in family research. Publication date is set for October 18, 2018.

Much thanks to NetGalley for this advanced copy. Opinions are mine and I was not compensated for the review.

Sensible, organized, easy to understand, and thorough - basically a how to handbook for researching your family tree or history, or information out your ancestors.

This is a wonderful resource for anyone who is interested in researching family history and genealogy. It contains many valuable tips and strategies to make the hobby of genealogy much more accessible to the uninitiated. While Ancestry and other online companies have seemingly unlimited records, they are not the only route to gaining knowledge in this area.
Highly recommended!

First of all, this is a very American focused book. This is extremely useful for those researching American relatives, but not so much for those researching outside of the US. There are some tips that carry over, but this is mostly for American research. For this purpose, it does a great job. The book isn't organized by chapters really, and very little information is written into paragraphs. Information is presented as groups of charts, or lists designed for quick reference and navigation. I really liked the information about the grave symbolism, and the detailed instructions for recording grave marker information. This book provides example questions to ask relatives, and sample form letters to send to information holders. It is made to be used, instead of read. Some information may not age well, such as specific websites listed, but for the time being, it acts like a phone book of sorts, giving out numbers and addresses for sites, archives etc. For the new American genealogist this book may be a great help.

Lots of help here for anyone starting out on their search for their ancestors. I’ve have been researching my family tree for over 10 years but found a few things I din’t know. The list of time lines were very helpful in placing my ancestors in a global context of world events. It needs some illustrations or photography to add interest and break up the text.