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Angus Baxter, one of our most celebrated writers on genealogy, boils down his forty years of experience into this one important volume. In it he launches you on your path of discovery, determined to motivate you, to get you moving in the right direction, and to bring you to a successful conclusion. Along the way you will make mistakes, waste time and money, and maybe lapse into despair--but Baxter will cheer you with timely advice and encouragement, and show you what to do and what not to do--often by example or anecdote--and all within a sensible framework. The book goes from the beginning of the research process, through the various steps in getting data from the classic sources, to the final compilation of your family tree--with excursions into the realms of civil registration, censuses, church registers, wills, the LDS Church, religion, heraldry, and so on.

In a robust combination of insight and encouragement, Baxter claims, "If I can do it, so can you. If I can complete this magic journey back into my own past, then so, too, can you." He promises you will enter into a world of unexpected romance, and with the aid of this book he will help you to find it.