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Vanity or Subscription Histories - Page 2

© Mark W. Swarthout

The other bits and pieces you will discover are much more difficult to find! If you know the relative's profession, their organizations and their religious affiliations, you may find more about them in that section of the book. Lodges and churches, their members and founders, even their officers may be detailed under the appropriate heading. The press is often detailed, giving all the newspapers, their dates of founding and how long they operated. It is a great starting place to determine what newspapers may be applicable!

I have had some success, in both the genealogical aspect and the family history through these publications. The History of Clearfield County revealed the parents of one of the wives, though added little to my knowledge of either of them. My biggest success has been the discovery that one of my relatives was hired by Thompson & West to edit three of these vanity history books. And of course, he was a bit partial to his cousins, resulting in my knowledge of my 5G Grandfather's brothers being very real characters in my mind, not to mention an engraved picture of one of them! My web pages on Myron Angel , this fascinating character, can be found here: http://people.mw.mediaone.net/mswarthout... One of Myron's cousins, Mahlon D. Fairchild, and brother to my 5GGrandfather, is credited with some of the editorial work on Thompson & West's History of Nevada.

The creation of these types of histories is not a lost art! They are still being written and published. When a county or community celebrates a 200th anniversary, they will often put together a book detailing the people and businesses in the area. My parents subscribed to one such publication in the 1970's, at the time of the American Bicentennial. I even picked up a copy of one done for my current county of residence's 200th anniversary at the local library book sale.

There is no specific spot on the web to find such things. I recommend starting at the US GenWeb site for the county in question. If such books exist, it is normally referenced there, and perhaps, there is a friendly genealogist out there willing to look your ancestor up for you! http://www.usgenweb.org/statelinks.html

A general query with your favorite search engine can be quite revealing! Another possibility is that several of the commercial booksellers have used book sections. Search for city and county names. This can give you a starting point and help identify the existance of such a volume for your area of interest. And don't forget my friend, the Inter Library Loan! It can be an efficient way to obtain a copy for a few weeks and costs a lot less than trying to buy a copy of the book.

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