Introduction: How to use this book -- An overview -- How to begin -- Oral history -- Official records -- Migration patterns -- Records pertaining to slavery in Alabama -- Historical preservation and family history -- Freedmen's Bureau in Alabama -- Selective records survey of Alabama's counties -- Introduction to county records.
Chapters: ORGANIZING YOUR RESEARCH AND MATERIALS --- OBTAINING THE MATERIALS --- IDENTIFYING THE REGIMENT --- CHRONOLOGY AND ARMYSTRUCTURE --- HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL SOCIETIES , LIBRARIES ANDOTHER ARCHIVES --- HISTORIC SITES , PARKS , AND BATTLEFIELDS --- NATIONAL ARCHIVES --- OTHER MAJOR COLLECTIONS --- INTERNET WEBSITES --- GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC --- BOOKS --- NEWSPAPERS --- DEALERS , RETAILERS , AND AUCTIONS --- REENACTMENTS AND SHOWS
Appendices include sources for rosters, a chronology of battles, a chart of the regimental organization, state archives, historical and genealogical organizations, other museums,libraries, and collections of interest.
Seeing ancestors in historical context -- Creating a timeline -- Why did they leave? -- How did they go? -- Coming to America -- Myths, confusions, secrets and lies -- Even harder to find missing persons -- Social history and community genealogy -- State by state -- And region by region.
Summary
History lays the foundation to understand a group of people. Genealogy lays the foundation to understand a person or family using tangible historic evidence.
The census book : a genealogist's guide to federal census facts, schedules and indexes : with master extraction forms for federal census schedules, 1790-1930
