52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy: WorldCat

A chain of events, starting with a post of a family photo on this blog, led me to my first clues about Captain John Slatter's long and illustrious career with the 48th Highlanders Regiment of Toronto, Canada. I've been in touch with the regiment and with its museum for a few months now.

To find out even more, I used WorldCat to locate any printed materials about this famous regiment. On the top of the list was George W. Beal's book (cover above), Family of Volunteers: An Illustrated History of the 48th Highlanders of Canada. And it's available from the Library of Congress, an easy inter-library-loan away from me.

My local library was kind enough to request the book (for a very minimal charge) and it arrived just 5 weeks later, for use only in the library. I read through, and then took out my new portable scanning wand and captured several pages of info about Captain Slatter, including photos and more. Also, I photographed the same pages and the cover.

Here's a shot of the index entry for Capt. Slatter: 

 

Thanks to WorldCat, I now know more about the history of the 48th Highlanders, and more about my husband's great-uncle Jack, who served as bandmaster for 50 years.

WorldCat is free and you never know what you'll find--like me, you might come across a book or two that will give you new insights about your family tree.