"Designed to help recover the multigenerational facts of your ancestry, this book is an expansive guide to the most useful resources in each of the fifty United States and the District of Columbia. Conducting research at a distance from the places one's ancestors lived can be quite a challenge. There still is no substitute for on-site research because not everything is, or probably ever will be, on microfilm, in print, or available through interlibrary...

Tells not only how and where to search, but what to do with the data accumulated. If one chapter leads to a deadend, the authors suggest other routes worth following.

"Researchers often overlook the importance of land records as a source for genealogical information. But significant, often hidden, clues can be found in land and property records, and they form an invaluable resource for research in the United States... The more you know about land and property records and how to locate them, the more you will learn about your ancestors. [This book] is the most comprehensive and useful review of land and property...