31 Days to Better Genealogy – Day 13: Use WorldCat.org

Amy Johnson Crow has been sharing on her Generations Cafe Facebook Group a prompt each day for May. They are based off of her book 31 Days to Better Genealogy that you can buy on Amazon (shown below).

Day 13 of 31 Days to Better Genealogy is: Use WorldCat.org. A book I am interested in looking at is titled Pennsylvania Research: County and Township Records by John T. Humphrey. In a Pennsylvania presentation syllabus, the presenter said: “an excellent description of the records available for the counties and the townships in Pennsylvania. However, in the book’s introduction he even states that his lists may not be complete.”

I wonder if this book is similar to the New York State Towns, Villages, and Cities by Remmington. I found the book on Amazon:

One person on Amazon gave it a review and they only gave it 1 star saying: “It is useless. It is a card catalog of sources for a given county without stating where the sources are.”

Hmm… It is a good book to buy or not? So taking Amy Johnson Crow’s advise to check out WorldCat.org, I did so to see if a local library has a copy of the book for me to look inside the book before I consider buying it.

Sadly, it looks like the closest library that WorldCat.org shows is the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland:

When travel is safe and places open up again from being closed due to CoronaVirus, I’ll have to add looking up this book the next time that I visit my friend Sunny Morton in Cleveland! The book is also at the Allen County Public Library in Indiana. Sunny and I are planning a trip there soon for me to deliver a donation from the Niagara County Genealogical Society (NCGS).

Hopefully we will be allowed to travel soon!