Are Your Ancestors Or Their Homesteads In Google Books?

Have you ever checked out Google books? There is some great information to be found there. If you are lucky you might have an ancestor mentioned in a book, but at the very least you could find a history on the township or county your ancestor settled in. Within this history will be other settlers mentioned who could very well have been part of your ancestor's social circle. In turn these people may have done business with your ancestors, attended church with them, had children that married your ancestor's kids,  or kept journals that your ancestors are mentioned in.

One day I searched for my four times great grandfather Jefferson Fry who was born about 1808 in Shelby County, Kentucky. At some point he moved to Clinton County, Missouri. The book that came up in the search is The History of Clinton County, Missouri. There was tons of wonderful information! It turns out Jefferson was among the first settlers of Clinton County in 1831 to an area called Clinton Township. The book goes onto name his parents with their death dates and exact ages. There is a description of Solomon Fry, who sounds like quite a character, with a lot of information. The book also goes onto say that Jefferson recently moved to Colorado with the year 1881 in parentheses.

Pretty cool, huh? Google books is a great resource. You never know what you might find there or how it could help your research.