While in the beginning of your genealogy work, you’re probably not going to go to much expense for things like genealogy reference books, particularly if its just a sometimes hobby for you, but as you get more deeply involved you’re going to find that a few books to point you in the right direction will help immensely.
When you come to some kind of stumbling blocks, as we all do you’re going to need something to point you in the right direction or give you some refreshers.`        `

What may help you to get past them is some additional knowledge from some good genealogy reference books.
There are two genealogy reference books that I can’t live without, which were recommended to me by an incredibly talented genealogist  from Nebraska.

The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy is the first of these genealogy reference books you might want to consider purchasing.

Published by Ancestry Inc. it is a fairly  large book full of all kinds of information that you’re going to need about documentation and documents.This genealogy reference, if you can only get one, is the one that you’re going to want to start with. It will help you to determine what records are out there, what you’ll find in them that will be useful to you in your search, and where you can go to look for them.

The second book that I love, is called Ancestry’s Red Book: American State, County, & Town Sources.

What it is, is an amazing tool for helping you to get closer to what you want by searching localities.
Some of the vast amount of information that you’re going to fnd here is precisely where certain vital records information is found in the various counties and states in the United States. They are organized by the states and also tell you when the counties within those states were formed, making it a lot easier to find the county you want.

Although there are other books that you may want down the road, these two are going to be an incredible help in finding the things you need to track down your ancestry.

Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes from the UK 1837-2004