Your Guide to Using Genealogy Periodicals

Through the years genealogists have been well served by genealogy focused periodicals which published family histories, transcribed source material, articles to help hone a researchers skills, "query" sections that located fellow researchers decades before the internet's much talked about ability to do the same and letters from genealogists offering support and helpful hints. Genealogy societies often publish quarterlies that contain information specific to a certain locality. Individuals publish family newsletters that document information on all descendants of a given individual or, sometimes, anyone of a specific surname. It can be difficult to find what all has been published, but there are indexes that help locate material on a specific locality, surname or topic. Some quarterlies provide annual every-name indexes, and sometimes these are cummulated to make it easier to search a broader time frame.

Books, articles, magazines and tapes

Here are some periodicals that you may want in your home library. Many of the magazines also have articles available online. You can buy most at Borders or Barnes and Noble, but subscriptions are cheaper. A trip to the bookstore might allow you to preview an issue and in some bookstores you can do so while sipping a latte!

Ancestry.com offers Ancestry Magazine (one of the most popular genealogy magazines) and Genealogical computing (but no online versions). Ancestry tends to describe and plug books and databases on Ancestry.com, but that doesn't overwhelm the content of the magazine. Late 2006 they announced a "relaunch" of the magazine with a new organization and updated look and feel.

Everton's Genealogical Helper -- The grand daddy of genealogy magazines, updated for the computer age and for decades, the only general genealogy magazine published the U.S. The magazine has struggled to keep it's own style, but compete with the newer magazines, but now have a formula that provides a wide range of articles and services.

Family Chronicle: The Magazine for Families Researching their Roots. The articles tend to be short and to the point and are often written by experts. A lot of news and reviews; this magazine covers a wide variety of topics. Even if you don't subscribe, you can visit their web site and get the links covered in their most recent issue and visit their archive of selected "how-to" articles. They will also mail you a free issue for which you return the invoice to pay or cancel, as you choose.

Family Tree Magazine (there is a downloadable 5 year index available for those of you who have subscribed and have a stash) This magazines provides the most substantial amount of links and internet information. They post online their annual list of the top 101 web sites.

Heritage Quest often has good information on foreign research and has been around for several years, but has now ceased publication. It used to be a more substantial magazine.. bigger in size and covering topics in greater depth. The more recent issues were ighter in both ways, evidently competing with the style of Family Tree and Ancestry, but it remained more in-depth than either of them. You can view table of contents and some articles online. The 1985-1989 issues are available on CD-ROM. Of course these issues won't have useful internet information, but they contain many articles of value to the serious researcher, especially so for the genealogist who is researching ancestors in foreign countries.

Internet Genealogy is the newest addition to this market. It is put out by the publishers of Family Chronicle. As the name suggests, it focuses on making effective use of internet resources to find your family. You can download a sample issue at this web address.

As your research becomes more focused and you become more interested in publishing your genealogy, you may find you want to subscribe to some of the more scholarly genealogy journals. These periodicals publish well researched genealogical summaries that are valuable not just for the lineage covered, but for insights into methodology and variety of sources available to the genealogists.

The American Genealogist (nicknamed TAG) was founded in 1922 by Donald Lines Jacobus and has promoted careful analysis and thorough documentation through publication of articles that rise to the standards set forth by the editors.

If you have New England Ancestors, you will be interested in the oldest U.S. periodical,the New England Historical and Genealogical Register. This is sent to members of the NEHGS and is available to members in searchable format on their website

Indexes:

Jacobus. Index to Genealogical Periodicals. Published in

PERSI

GPAI

Hinckley. Finding Ancestors in Periodicals

Hinckley. Genealogical Education: Magazines and Journals

A Review of Genealogy Magazines Part 1

See also Jim Rader's list of Genealogical Magazines

Walsh. Genealogical Periodicals: a Guide for Research

Indexes to Genealogy periodicals

All multi-periodical indexes are topical; they index names, locations and topics as represented in the title of the article. None are all-name or all-place indexes, although individual periodicals often have annual indexes that provide that service.

While not the only index, PERSI (Periodical Source Index) is the most commonly used index. It indexes surnames, topics and localities named in titles for articles in periodicals received by the Allen County Public Library. Note it does not index every name found in an article; only those mentioned in the title. It is available in book form, which can be cumbersome to use, and in subscription databases available on the web. Most public libraries offer Heritage Quest and/or Ancestry Library Edition; both offer PERSI. Usually you can log on to your local library site and search Heritage Quest from home, but must be in the library to use Ancestry Library Edition. The online version is now updated through 2005. , but I believe this is the case only for the Heritage Quest version; the one on Ancestry.com isn't as current. If you find an article in PERSI, you can order a copy of that article from the Allen County Public Library.

The Family History Library has a copy of PERSI on microfiche, but it is not convenient to use and may no longer be current. However their PERSI Research Outline gives a thorough explanation of what is included and how it is organized.

If you have the CD -- now out of print -- you will want to read Neill'article: Some Features of the PERSI CD

Morgan. Pursuing Periodicals with PERSI

Neill. PERSI Some Initial Thoughts

Two other commonly used indexes are GPAI and AGBI. GPAI (Genealogical Periodical Annual Index) covers periodicals 1962 forward.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Index to Genealogical Periodicals by Donald Jacobus, published between 1932-1953, which is a partial index of about 80 19th and 20th century periodicals through 1952.

Genealogy Periodical Indexes

Periodical Resource Index

Sperry. Indexes to Genealogical Periodicals

Witcher. Searchin' Serials: Using Periodicals in Genealogical Research.

Wynkoop. Genealogy Periodical Indexes: Persi, the GPAI and AGBI

More Links

Cyndi's List: Magazines, Columns, Journals and Newsletters.