Books on Family Search

Recently, I saw a rant on Facebook about those who complain about the global tree on FamilySearch while ignoring all of the other resources available on the FamilySearch site. And I agree with the poster of the FB rant that there are lots of resources available on the FamilySearch site.

Since I’m currently going thru my tree and my older research notes, I’m coming across quite a few notes taken from a source that is often forgotten in today’s Internet age: BOOKS. One of the resources mentioned in the ‘rant’ was the collection of books available thru the FamilySearch site. Thus, I can use this book collection to verify the information found in these old notes.

One such set of old notes that I recently uncovered contains information about my ancestor, Jason Hammond, but leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to creating a source citation.

Since I wanted more information for this source, I searched Google for “history of western reserve”. While the top result was not a book reference, I came across a possibility.

This particular book was full text on Google Books. Thus, I was able to locate page 359 and verify that it was the desired book.

Curious about what a search of books on the FamilySearch site would reveal, I searched for the term: Western Reserve and had 319,756 results!

When I put quote marks around the phrase, the number of results was reduced significantly, but still over 20,000.

Using the advanced search, I searched for the title: History of the Western Reserve. Again, I got a ton of results.

Since my Google search had identified an author, I edited my advanced search to add Upton as the author. That search limited my results to 19, with the first item being the book in question.

Using a digital copy of the book allows me to ‘search’ the entire contents of the book which has the potential to locate additional references. It also allowed me to not only transcribe the section of interest but also to scroll backwards to verify that page 359 was in the section of the book about Summit County.

History of the Western Reserve v. 1
by Harriet Taylor Upton
Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1910

page 334 – Summit County section begins

page 359
Bath Township

Bath township received its first settler in the person of Jason Hammond in the year of 1810. It was originally called Wheatfield, but with the coming of the Hammonds and their prominence in its affairs the name gradually disappeared and the entire township was for many years known as Hammondsburg. Deacon Jonathan Hale and Mr. Hammond left Connecticut within four days of each other, Mr. Hale filing the second claim in the township. Upon its political organization in 1818, it was Deacon Hale who was the means of giving its present name, Bath. At the first meeting of town officers one of the questions put was, What shall it be called, and Mr. Hale spoke emphatically as follows: “Call it Jerusalem, or Jericho, or Bath or anything but Hammondsburg,” and the majority voted to have it christened Bath.
When Messrs. Hammond and Hale located in the township, the Cuyahoga valley was inhabited by a band of Ottawa Indians, the chief of which was Skikellimus, the father of the famous Logan. The present hamlet of Hammond Corners was named after the pioneer settler of Bath Township. Ghent is a flourishing hamlet, in which are several saw and grist mills and evidences of considerable business.

Now, to go back and check out some of those 20,000 books on the Western Reserve!