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eBay auctions and Half Price Books are reasonable resources for genealogy

Donna Streetenberger's photo
Fort Worth Genealogy Examiner

Antique books
Genealogy is generally an inexpensive hobby. However, some genealogy books and software can be quite costly. There are some options, both locally and online, that offer these items at reasonable prices or sometimes even for free.
Several years ago, a family historian was researching an ancestor who once held an original land grant in Nacogdoches County. Browsing through the Texana collection at a local Half Price Books store, he found a spiral bound book containing an abstract of Texas land titles originally printed in 1878. The book not only held the name of the ancestor he was currently researching, but also several other names of people already on his tree. Purchasing the book for ten dollars, he was able to obtain an inexpensive, yet priceless, addition to his family records.
A low fee option online for family history researchers is auction sites such as eBay. A mix of the old and the new, these sites offer everything from long lost family bibles to the latest family tree software. A recent search of eBay resulted in over seven thousand items pertaining to genealogy. However, with online auctions it’s important not to purchase information that may be located elsewhere on the internet for free. Examples of this include the Native American Dawes Rolls Index and various genealogy forms like those found free at FamilyTreeMagazine.com.
To access the original Texas land records for free, see the Texas Land Grant Database.
 
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, Fort Worth Genealogy Examiner

Donna Streetenberger is a freelance writer, avid genealogist, wife, and mother living in Keller, Texas. She has been conducting family research, for herself and others, in the DFW area and across the nation, for the past twenty years. Donna may be contacted at streetenberger@verizon.net.

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