Often in our quests to acquire large amounts of information on our family and advance our genealogical pursuits, we focus so narrowly on a combination of primary source documents and compiled genealogies that we miss the tremendous offerings of local, regional, and social histories. While they are typically secondary sources, many times these later compilations can provide us with useful background information and assist us in uncovering even richer veins of primary source records. They can truly be our research guides, indicating where to look for genealogical data and identifying major works whose significance may not be well known outside a very small geographic area. They are also of great assistance in developing a context into which one can place potential ancestors-both a geographic context and a historical context.

Perhaps the reluctance to use published histories stems from many researchers' unwillingness to carefully and methodically take advantage of all the data presented in a particular published work. Too often the temptation to find a desired name in the index of a book and then proceed directly to the identified pages overrides a more practical and meaningful examination of the book in hand. And, too, the lament is often heard, "Why look in the county history? My ancestor wasn't rich enough or important enough to be included." The reasons to look in all the published histories pertaining to the geographic area of one's ancestors are many and can be more clearly understood when one examines how published histories could be better utilized by genealogists.

The prefatory and introductory pages of any text should always be investigated for the valuable pieces of information they typically contain. For example, it is in the prefatory matter of the well-known 1787 Census of Virginia that one learns the work is actually a tax compilation, and, further what the criteria are for having one's ancestor included on the list. The preface and introduction of any historical work typically set the stage for information offered in the main body of the book. One can frequently find other major historical works cited, references to other important sections of the work in hand, and a sense of organization about the actual data in the book.

The table of contents typically completes the list of sections one can expect to find at the beginning of a history book. Besides giving one general-subject access to the book, a table of contents can quickly inform the researcher about special chapters of the work which might be particularly useful. In They Loved the Land: Foard County History, by Bailey Phelps, 1969, one can find chapters devoted to county judges, Crowell hospitals, agriculture, schools, and transportation, as well as inviting-sounding sections on "Looking Back," "How Dates Were Made," and the catch-all "Miscellaneous."

In these sections, one can find many old photographs and a surprisingly large number of individuals included in the photo captions who do not appear in the abbreviated index. It is in the "Looking Back" section that one learns about Crowell's championship basketball team, the turn-of-the-century Stovall's Grocery and Fegeson Drug Store, as well as a number of churches and social organizations. With this information, one can investigate the holdings of local libraries and historical societies to determine if other publications and primary source documents exist for these institutions, organizations, and individuals. This data would be missed if one only devoted time to looking through the list of family histories in the biographical section.

While searching the surnames of interest in the indexes of local histories, and finding the corresponding pages in their biographical sections has understandable appeal, reviewing the historical recountings of an ancestor's geographic area should be equally appealing to the savvy genealogist. Our ability to find all the information available about a particular ancestor is directly tied to our success in placing the ancestor in proper context. Historical compilations about specific regions, organizations, social trends, and ethnic groups provide this context. If we understand migration and settlement patterns, and appreciate the importance of engaging in "nearby" research, when searching for an elusive ancestor, local and social history compilations should again come to the foreground in importance.

The overwhelming majority of local histories address how a particular region and its citizens handled and reacted to every major state and national happening. In these compilations we can find how a community handled everything from wars, waves of immigrants, and depressions, to changing political scenery, taxation, trade, and commerce. And each of these events affects what people do, where they live, what organizations they belong to, how they earn income, and how they dispose of that income. Knowing what neighborhoods developed during a particular time period, realizing when certain organizations came into and went out of business, being aware of various laws and codes, as well as local customs and ceremonies-all this provides the researcher with the ability to uncover more information.

Know the history by understanding its organizations as chronicled in the pages of historical works. This makes one more aware of potential sources of data which can be accessed through local libraries and historical societies, as well as through national bibliographic databases. If a history indicates that wolf bounties were established as a method of dealing with livestock attacks, then there should be a record in among the holdings of the county courthouse indicating who was paid a bounty, the amount, and when the bounty was paid. If we appreciate that like ethnic groups, tended to migrate together and settle together, forming their own ethnic schools, newspapers, and churches, then the mention of ethnic neighborhoods or organizations in a local history should encourage the researcher to uncover all the records and documents created by that particular group. In a sense, one might say that reading the pages of a local history can be the "door-opener" to a myriad of other documents and publications.

A very recent compilation by Robert Taylor and Connie A. McBirney entitled Peopling Indiana: The Ethnic Experience (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1996) is an outstanding example of how a historical compilation can make one a better researcher and sensitize one to look for all possible sources of data. In more than seven hundred pages, the researcher finds an organized and detailed accounting of the more than twenty-five different ethnic groups which settled Indiana. Group by group, the work meticulously addresses geographic dispersion through the state, identifies the areas in which a particular group tended to settle, and lists numerous publications and organizations in each chapter. A number of charts and graphs are provided to assist the researcher in quickly and easily understanding the people of Indiana.

In the chapter on German settlement in Indiana, one can find the areas of Germany from which Hoosier Germans migrated, the factors which caused these migrations, and the composition of many early German communities in Indiana. A table of Germans in Indiana in 1880 is provided, organized by county and further divided by area of Germany from which the person originated. The found dates of many churches are provided, as well as vignettes on life in Indiana for some German-speaking people. This chapter, like all others in the work, ends with extensive footnotes. One hundred sixty-six notes conclude the German chapter. In some chapters, such as the one on Italians in Indiana, the section is complemented with a list of interviewees and oral sources.

What can the genealogist do with an extensive section of notes? Besides providing the researcher with a clear documentation for statements made, footnotes and bibliographies can truly provide a motherlode of data if one engages in a process known as citation analysis. This process involves taking a critical look at all notes and bibliographic references with an eye toward analyzing them for evidence of heretofore unknown record groups, publications, court records, and other papers which might document the life of an ancestor.

In the above-mentioned work, Peopling Indiana: The Ethnic Experience, if researchers were to hold any chapter's listing of footnotes up for analysis, they would find an amazingly deep and broad collection of source materials in which further research could be conducted. In the chapter chronicling the Irish settlement of Indiana, among the 125 notes, we find mention of many significant items, including the following list: