They came in ships : a guide to finding your immigrant ancestor's arrival record /

Perhaps most useful to persons unaccustomed to research methods, this guide takes an informal, simply stated approach to using passenger lists--even to the point of cautioning the microfilm user to return the film to the right place in the right drawer. The step-by-step approach organizes searching into the pre-1820 and post-1820 period when legislation required the submission of passenger lists by ships' captains. For more practiced searchers, such discussions of passenger lists, as appear (beginning on page 41) in the US National Archives and Records Service's Guide to Genealogical Research in the National Archives (1982) would be sufficient. -V. L. Close, Dartmouth College

Irvine, a teacher in British Columbia, has teamed up with one of the leading genealogy publishers to give us a fine handbook for English genealogy research. Irvine focuses on how to use the many unpublished resources available in North America at the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, many FHL branch libraries, and FH Centers located in local Latter Day Saints churches and other larger libraries. In addition, Irvine outlines research in English repositories. Her nuts-and-bolts approach to relatively accessible material sets this book apart from other handbooks. Essential for the institutional as well as the home market. Colletta's work, revised since it was first published in 1989, provides a helpful discussion of biographical and genealogical information and other migration details that may be found in passenger lists. Four information-filled chapters provide help on acquiring the information needed to search for passenger lists. The annotated bibliography is excellent, though the book still lacks an index. Researchers in the ship passenger list and immigration field should read this book, along with Michael H. Tepper's American Passenger Arrival Records (Genealogical Pubs., 1988). Essential.-- Judith P. Reid, Lib. of Congress (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.