5 comments about The Family Tree Problem Solver: Proven Methods for Scaling the Inevitable Brick Wall.

1. As a genealogy reference or guide I found this book to be a dud.
   
   It has almost the worst Index I have ever seen. Sources that are mentioned in the text are not in the index nor clearly explained.
   
   As an example the source I know as the "Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature" was mentioned, more than once, under an odd acronym and I did not find any explanation or comment on the acronym or the different title.



2. This book is a cut above many popular genealogy "how to" books.
   
   I'm really picky about genealogy books, and this one is excellent. Most books don't discuss carefully evaluating evidence and really thinking through problems associated with conflicting information, burned counties, brick walls etc. The "thinking" in this book and the examples of alternative sources one may not be familiar with are what is outstanding. In addition, Ms. Rising's examples are clear, easy to follow and informative, and there are many of them. Her research methods are applicable to ANY time period you are working in. I disagree with another reviewer who complained that this book won't help someone with "late" immigrant ancestors.
   
   I'm an experienced genealogist and a trained researcher who has been working for 25 years on my family lines. The land chapter, in particular, and the chapter on working in the years between the Revolutionary War and 1850, gave me several directions to go in knocking down some brick walls.
   
   Beginners as well as experienced researchers will benefit from this book. What will help doing genealogy research most of all is knowing how to evaluate what you have and how to recognize what else you need. This book does much more!



3. Excellent resource for American ancestors from 1800-1900. She discussed techniques and common pitfalls that were very helpful despite my having many years of good solid experience.



4. This book had some good suggestions, but it dealt with her specific problems. It gave me some good ideas.



5. I love the problem solving techniques that this book demonstrates. The author provides step by step instructions and case studies that help with some of the more difficult problems in genealogical research. I have recommended it in classes that I teach on methodology because I think it is so helpful.

5 comments about Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan.

1. koolhaas is a bit over-the-top for me, but this I think is is best work. it's worth checking out if only for the story of coney island. once you get past blisteringly pretentious phrases like "coney island is a fetal manhattan", you'll find it gloriously entertaining as both a narrative and theoretical work.



2. A very inventive concept of New York's "culture of congestion" and how people are affected by the architecture they create. It is heavily researched and exhaustive, and after pretty much the third page I agreed with his concept of NY being "totally fabricated by man". What could of been a fascinating article becomes a spastic, heavy-handed read with a sledgehammer effect to your brain. (However,for those of us reading it for school, there are plenty of pictures that fill up the almost devastatingly vast 300+pages quickly.) It will scramble your brain with its thousands of nearly bumper-stickerish statements ("It hides life." "The Mountain MUST become architecture.") written with pretentious glee. However, I believe an independent scientific study has concluded that when pretending to read this book on the train people around you will assume your IQ is 40% higher than truth.



3. through the exhaustive historiography of the phases of congestion coney island brought to manhattan, koolhaas provides a rather cynical view of the Grid as being an ulimatley neutral zoning system of constraining ideas that represent the continual decline of a phantastically realistic civilization, represented as mutated symbols of architecture in the "void" of repeated "pregnancies."
   
   it's really well written. funny. uses, like above, a somewhat inefficient vocabulary but remains in the same vein throughout. it is also a graphic design hubris consuming every page, even the left-justified text, showing off koolhaas's interpretation of the importance to combine scholarship and marketing.
   
   buy it. it's a very good book.



4. While "Delirious" has its fair share of archispeak, Mr. Koolhaas pulls off an intelligent, fun and thought-provoking take on the early 20th century building culture of New York.
   
   One of the quirkier (and frankly, awesome/bravadoish) aspects of "Delirious" is Mr. Koolhaas's analysis of Coney Island: an "incubator for Manhattan's incipient themes." As a reader, one initially questions the inclusion of such a trashy place in such a lofty manifesto. However, as the chapter progresses, you start to see Mr. Koolhaas's iconoclastic brilliance. He pays an amazing homage to "the laboratory" that was Coney Island, illuminating the vital role it played in the building philosophies that would emerge later in Manhattan.
   
   Scattered throughout "Delirious," also, are compelling supporting images that Mr. Koolhaas clearly spent a lot of time digging up. In fact, flipping through the book for the images alone makes for a near-equivalent, and fun, learning experience.
   
   However, unlike his tasteful use of images, Mr. Koolhaaas's flamboyant use of scholarly English makes his writing difficult to digest at times:
   
   "It is probably inevitable that a doctrine based on the continual simulation of pragmatism, on a self-imposed amnesia that allows the continuous reenactment of the same subconscious themes in ever new reincarnations and on inarticulateness systematically cultivated in order to operate more effectively..."
   
   Given Mr. Koolhaas's journalism background (and assumed mastery of writing), I suspect he made the conscious decision to remain somewhat inaccessible to preserve his "lofty" image. While such a decision may be understandable, his brilliance as a writer often gets overshadowed by the sheer irritation of trying to understand him.
   
   Ultimately, "Delirious" proves itself to be a very intelligent synopsis---just as delirious and congested the themes Mr. Koolhaas puts forth. For the most part, it's a pleasure to read, and it also reflects the exhaustive research on Mr. Koolhaas's end. Much like Mr. Koolhaas's buildings, "Delirious" is on the cusp of being as grand as it intends to be.



5. The author presents in concise fashion his own version of New York City's urban development history.
   
   One may or may not be convinced by his thesis that there is a specific New York City psyche that is reflected over time in a wide variety of constructions.
   
   But one can only be enthralled by his intimate knowledge of the City and of projects ranging from Coney Island to the Empire State Building to the 1964 World Fair.
   
   The surprising and at times bizarre illustrations add to the incredibly rich text. They include for instance a vintage photograph of famous architects actually costumed as their own creations: the Fuller Building, the Waldorf-Astoria, the Squibb Building, the Chrysler Building, etc.
   
   Written over 30 years ago and thus also a reflection of the 1970's, this work is definitely a classic well worth reading today for anyone interested in New York or in cities in general.

5 comments about Deep Ancestry: Inside The Genographic Project.

1. I'm an avid reader but I rarely read a book from front to back, but this one I did. It reads like a mystery thriller with Spencer Wells revealing clues and answers. A great read. For the egoists on certain racial origins it must be a shattering blow, but for the spiritually minded it warms the heart to think that we -- the human race -- began 60,000 years ago with a single family in an African Valley.
   But this prompts some intriguing questions: Where did the family originate? Why? How? And what force, influence or motivator put it there? Perhaps God, the Universal Mind, visitors from a distant cosmic realm? Was that single family planted as a seed? If so, are we being observed? If so, who is doing the watching, and why? Hopefully Dr. Wells and the Genographic Project will discover some answers. Meanwhile we wait for the next episode.



2. This book served me well as a review of the ideas in Wells' "The Journey of Man", with the added benefit that it also references the findings from analyses of women's mitochondrial DNA, finding consistency between those findings and the findings based on men's Y chromosome. At the same time it is disappointing in that it offers no fresh insight into whether there was some genetic great leap forward in the last 50,000-75,000 years, corresponding to the cultural leap forward. Nor does it make me any more comfortable with the fact that Eve lived so much earlier than Adam. It suggests this may be due to the fact that the men with the most reproductive success can be responsible for a relatively large proportion of children (Genghiz Khan has a huge number of descendants), but that is not sufficient in my mind. At the very least, I would have expected some simulations to test various assumptions which might lead to the Eve/Adam conundrum.
   
   The reader also needs to be aware that Wells, probably for simplicity, tends to make the most likely scenarios more certain than they are: letting in uncertainty only when you get to the the future areas of research, and the detailed discussion of the haplogroups.



3. "Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project" by Spencer Wells. National Geographic, Washington, DC. 2006. ISBN 10: 0-7922-6215-8, HC 248 pgs., Index 6 pgs., Illustrations.
   
   A well-written, largely original dissertation on discovering and documenting the origin and migrations of earliest Man (Homo sapiens) utilizing mutation points in the genome as relative, fixed-time events and categorized as haplogroups (ancestral clans).
   
   A previously published researcher, Wells obtained Ph.D. (Harvard) & studied under Luca Cavalli-Sforza (Stanford), population geneticist. Wells' genetic studies used Y chromosomal DNA for paternal and mt DNA (Mitochrondrial) for maternal linkages. For exposition in this book, Wells performed computational analyses of c. 10,000 participants from diverse parts of the world. Based on assumption that mutations are rare, he and co-workers studied both mt DNA and Y chromosomes for evidence of mutation sites, frequencies, and they were, thereby, able to develop maps of earliest haplogroups (ancestral clans). Illustrations show his mapped and inferred migratory paths for ancestral "Eve" and "Adam" using mt-DNA and Y-Chromosome respectively. Improved data necessitates use of more subjects, i.e. 100,000.
   
   This book is written for a large general audience in mind and fortunately is not overly stuffed with scientific jargon. The many illustrations and maps are invaluable. This study is part of the 5-year, 40-million-dollar research Genographic Project launched in April 2005 (completing in 2010), using cheek swab specimens contributed by voluntary public participants who purchase kits to obtain cheek swab samples (cost c. $100) and each will be provided haplogroup ID. Contact info: [....]
   
   finis



4. Good basic read on DNA tracing, but nothing much new here if you've read other Wells books or have watched the National Geographic programs on the Genome Project.



5. "Deep Ancestry" is the 2006 follow-up to "The Journey Of Man" which Spencer Wells wrote in 2002. The author has a more complete treatment of the overall subject in his earlier book. This later version is a companion to the genetic test kit which can be ordered through the National Geographic Store online. Some of the study progress and updates are included, though even more could be updated now in all likelihood.
   
   Unlike some others I preferred this book to JOM. It's much more focused and specifically addresses the genetic test which, if you buy the kit, is helpful for understanding your results. About 4/5ths of the way through there is an Appendix which summarizes the different haplogroups, each with its own heading, so you can quickly, easily look up your group and what it means to fall into that group. These haplogroups are for both maternal [mtDNA] and paternal [Y-DNA] groups, even though the study focuses only on the paternal side of things. There's also a glossary of terms following the Appendix which is helpful to understanding what is being discussed.
   
   The Genographic Project, as it is called, is scheduled to wrap up sometime later this year [2010] but no firm deadline has been set so far that I know of. So there's still time to order a kit and test your family DNA to discover which line of descent, which haplogroup, your paternal or maternal lines descended from. Even though the Genographic Project is paternal focused, you can choose to have your maternal DNA tested instead if you want. Or both, but you will need 2 kits for that.
   
   I've seen kits offered above here on Amazon for Deep Ancestry under "Collectible" for $100. You can also buy one at the National Geographic Store online for $100, OR you can order one through the National Geographic Store online (the EXACT same test) for $77. Just Google "Genographic Kit" and both options will pop up. I ordered the $77 kit and it was just fine. S/H is a rip though at $17 ($23 for two). If you want to test both maternal and paternal lines you'll need two kits. If you're thinking of ordering a test kit to go wtih Deep Ancestry you might want to check out the Genographic Project website for the latest information and possible information on when the study is slated to end.
   
   I recommend Deep Ancestry as a companion to the DNA test kit, and vice-versa.

4 comments about The Official Guide to Ancestry.com.

1. The book is a good reference to have on hand to clarify a point or search a question.



2. I am of two minds when it comes to an "official guide" to any site on the World Wide Web. First, a website can consist of as many pages as necessary to cover the subject, and there can be as many interconnections between pages as necessary to guide the user. Second, the nature of hyperlinking is such that any properly designed website shouldn't need a guide. It should be so logically organized that navigation is obvious, and it should include its own internal "help" system. At least, that's the theory. In practice, even a site as generally well designed as Ancestry (and it is well designed) can eventually become so large, with so many layers, that it can be daunting even to an experienced genealogical web surfer.
   
   George Morgan, a well-known Florida genealogist, book author, and columnist, began doing research back in the 1960s, when "research" meant many trips to the courthouse and the library and waiting for replies to correspondence. Recent, younger converts to the hobby may find it difficult to imagine such a thing, but that's how it was. Ancestry was one of the earliest multi-database resources to appear online and is now part of the Generations Network, a huge conglomerate (in genealogical terms) that includes nearly a dozen previously separate database sites, plus Family Tree Maker and Ancestry Publishing. The Ancestry site itself includes more than 23,000 databases and transcribed books, with many more being constantly added, and the company has done the online researcher the service of making the templates nearly identical that give access to them. This book follows the obvious logical structure of devoting a chapter to each broad category: Census records, birth/marriage/death, immigration, directories and membership lists, newspaper and periodicals, court records, land, military, PERSI. maps, and local and family histories. Other chapters give advice on starting your first family tree on the site itself (something I don't recommend for reasons of access and lack of backup), on how to work with the many kinds of digitized records at Ancestry (much improved over the early days), using the Learning Center (lots of freebies here), and how to most efficiently spend your money at the Ancestry Store. The text of the book is generally well thought out and the sales pitch (Ancestry itself is the publisher, don't forget) is reasonably subtle.
   
   One thing: Don't forget that Ancestry is not a free research service, it's a business. If you live in a small town far away from large research libraries -- and especially if you need to do research in a far corner of the country -- a subscription is going to be far cheaper than gasoline. Plus, you can work online at any time of the day or night. But also don't forget that in many states the state library makes available a subscription to Ancestry to city and county libraries all around the state, and that anyone with a library card can therefore access any database at Ancestry for free by visiting their local library. (But no, you generally can't logon to the library's access point from home.)
   
   I can recommend this volume to anyone new to the websites it describes, although most of what is available on the site can be discovered simply by "walking around." It would especially make a good auxiliary gift if you're planning on giving someone in your family a gift subscription to Ancestry for Christmas.



3. I have been using Ancestry for a couple of years, but needed some help figuring out how to accomplish certain tasks. This book had the relevant information. I would recommend it to both new and old users of Ancestry.com



4. tHIS IS A REFERENCE BOOK TO KEEP RIGHT BESIDWE YOU WHEN YOU ARE WORKING WITH [...]. tHEY HAVE SO MUCH INFO AND YOU NEED HELP TO FOLOOW THE TRAILS. tHIS IS AN EXCELLENT MAP.

5 comments about The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

1. I bought this book as a required reading for school. It was very easy to read and covered many interesting topics. I would recommend this book to anyone that is interested in learning more about the urban environment.



2. Living in Detroit in 2009 I find the book quite relevant since we are now on a journey to remake the city.



3. Jacobs argues masterfully against the popular assumption that urban density leads to slums and decay. Instead she describes how a dense concentration of people gives a city vitality and provides a built-in source of security through "eyes on the street". Throughout the book she discusses various ways to achieve this density and manage the vitality it brings, all the while challenging misconceptions about how cities work.



4. My son is a college senior who is taking a seminar class in urban studies. He was born in Manhattan so it was not a surprise that he should develop an interest in the subject. While I was purchasing another 'leisure read' to send to him, I saw this book as a suggested other possibility. It got very high marks in all the reviews and I thought it would be a great addition to his collection of books in this area. I was not wrong. He loved the book and when he brought it to class, his professor was delighted that he had a copy and called it "the classic for studies of cities". He has even introduced me to Jane Jacobs' work as he reads more and more of this book. I hope to read it from cover to cover when he brings it home from college later this year.



5. In spite of the modest shortcomings that have emerged with age, I still have a deep and abiding fondness for this book... after all, it is what decided me on a career change into urban planning. And unlike much of the specialist literature that I've had to read since then, this book is thrilling, passionate, accessible, and inspiring.
   
   For me, at a certain point -- probably about 2/3rds of the way through Death and Life -- Jacobs seems to start to repeat herself a bit, but many of her insights as to what creates vibrant neighbourhoods and vibrant cities remain as applicable today as they were when she was feuding with Robert Moses over the future of the West Village. This book should be required reading for all planners, highway engineers, and developers; many neighbourhood associations would also probably be the better for having a copy to hand.
   
   But Jacobs' greatest strength, I believe, is that she combines great insight with clear prose that is devoid of the 'fancy' specialist terminology that practicing planners and academics use to talk about the forces driving change in neighbourhoods, towns, and metropolises. Anyone can read this book, and everyone should.

3 comments about The Official Guide to Family Tree Maker.

1. Pederson has hit the jackpot with her new guide. It is very esy to follow and is a merked improvement over earlier guides. Learning to se it is quite easy and has the informaation necessary to find waht you need. I recommend it highly.



2. You will really need this guide if you are going to make use of all the features of Family Tree Maker 2010. This is a full featured program, but it does not come with a suitable guide book. Get this book and discover all the great things you can accomplish with Family Tree Maker 2010.



3. Packaged well, received it in a timely manner and the price was even better! Cheaper than all other areas. I now have used the program and absolutely love it! Will order again from Amazon as I have before.

5 comments about 100,000 + Baby Names: The Most Complete Baby Name Book: Including 300+ Fascinating Lists, The Latest Naming Trends, Key to Gender-Neutral Names.

1. I was very satisfied of how quickly i received my product and the shape it was in. I will order from this person again if they have available my future needs!



2. We didn't get our first child's name from this book however we did our daughter. We love how it breaks down the names in so many different categories. You too will enjoy it. Strongly recommend for those of you that are about to be first time parents or those of you with so many kids you've run out of ideas lol!



3. The next baby name book I buy will have less names in it. There's too many names that I've never heard of, never would of thought were names or are from weird countries. I'd like to know more about what the names mean, and how they came to be. The "300+ Fascinating Lists" are actually not fascinating at all, and aren't that accurate in my opinion. You might as well search the internet for the lists if you want them (i.e. - handsome boy names, cute girl names, geeky names, studious names, etc).



4. It does have a LOT of names, but 90% of them are pretty ridiculous and I can't see many parents actually choosing these names for their children. I wonder if someone just sat down and made up tons of names just to give it the title "100,000+". Next time, instead of going for a baby book with a large quantity of baby names, I'll be looking for a specific genre of baby names that I like to be more specific, like "traditional baby names" or "unique baby names" ect.



5. This book is filled with names for even the most picky Mommy or Daddy. It has helped name our son. Thanks!

5 comments about Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do.

1. I read Working in 1986, when I was 23, and chose my profession based on one of the interviews (I'm a piano tuner/repairman). I am so grateful to Mr. Terkel and his subjects; without them I may have floundered in life, but because of their inspiration, I found work which I have enjoyed and learned from for more than two decades.



2. I was actually recommended this book by my advanced acting teacher as a senior in college. We had been talking about different places to find monologues for auditions other than plays. I had heard of the musical "Working" that had been inspired by this book, but had never looked into the literary reference. The second I opened this book, I was hooked.
   
   Not only did I find a countless number of potential monologues (sometimes three or four within one interview) but it also completely opened my mind to the people around me I often look past. I never took the time to consider the woman at the grocery register, like B. Secoli. Reading this book was ultimately life changing. Of course, after time one sinks back into their own self-absorbed existence, but every now and then, when I need a little perspective, I return to Studs Terkel's "Working" and rediscover the rest of humanity.



3. As I have done on other occasions when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his "The Good War": an Oral History of World War II".
   
   Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do serves to reflect on a time a couple of decades ago when people may have been resigned about their working career but had a feeling that it did not express all of what they were. Given today's uncertain economic climate and the wider fears about the effects of the long term trend "globalization" which particularly threatens many lower- skilled or easily transferable jobs I am not sure that such interesting reflections on their work experiences would be forthcoming from today's working population.
   
   Although Terkel has cast a wide net on the range of occupations and types of work that he presents here it is weighted toward blue collar working people: the waitresses, bartenders, service personnel and the like with whom he had such affinity. The most interesting aspect of this effort is that almost universally the work that people do does not reflect on their capacities. In short, the job is not the measure of the person. That said, I believe, intentionally or not, this little treasure trove of interviews is one of the great arguments for socialism: the creation of a society where an energetic waitress or a well-read steelworker, for example, could break out and become a leader of society. A place where every cook can take a turn at governing. That is the real message that these interviewees are trying, unsuccessfully for the most part, to articulate. How to successfully do that, however, is a separate and frustratingly hard politcal and organizational question that I have argues about elsewhere.
   
   One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel's interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else's story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn't to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most "ordinary" people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.



4. This book is OK. Some of the interviews are interesting, but a lot of them aren't, and many of them are just completely irrelevant in the 21st century. Not exactly a page turner.



5. Put it by your bed. Read the stories of a couple of people every night.

No comments about Who Do You Think You Are?: The Essential Guide to Tracing Your Family History.

5 comments about The Everything Guide to Online Genealogy: A complete resource to using the Web to trace your family history (Everything Series).

1. This book is great. It tells a lot of stuff I already knew about researching family history, but I also learned a lot just in the first Chapter! This is a must have for serious researchers!



2. I am a librarian and have bought a lot of books on genealogy but this one is fantastic. It is loaded with websites and ideas and to have it all in one place is just staggering. The author did a great job.



3. THIS HANDBOOK IS A GREAT ASSET TO SOMEONE JUST STARTING OUT IN GENEALOGY (AS I AM). IN FACT, I PURCHASED 2 COPIES; ONE FOR ME AND ONE FOR MY SISTER. NOW WE BOTH CAN BURN UP THE NET!



4. This was my first book on Genealogy I purchased and it has been a big help, after I had started my family tree. It's packed with great information and on-line resourses and also, some samples of family tree research. A must have for your Genealogy library.



5. Started researching family history a couple years ago, but was't making much headway. This book really has helped me get going and is improving my results. I purchased the book along with the Family tree maker 2010 software which is a much better than the previous editions. A great book to buy.