My Book Reviews Leading Up to America 250

As the 250th anniversary of US independence approaches, I'm looking back at just a few of my reviews or appreciations of books connected to American history. These books added to my knowledge and understanding of family history context during the past 250 years of American history.

Here are links to my reviews or appreciations of:

• The Quest for Annie Moore of Ellis Island (I have Ellis Island immigrant ancestors in my family tree)
• The Road That Made America (hubby's ancestors walked this road from Philly to Virginia)
• History for Genealogists (helpful for understanding what was possibly influencing the lives of my ancestors, both immigrants and US-born)
• The Last Ships from Hamburg (some of my ancestors actually sailed to America on these ships)
• Essential Guide to Researching Your Kentucky Family History (helpful as I was researching a still elusive ancestor in hubby's tree)
• The Pioneers (helpful for understanding the hype that whipped up Ohio Fever among some of hubby's East Coast ancestors)

Looking forward to reading more books as background for family history in the coming months!

Book Review: The Quest for Annie Moore of Ellis Island

Megan Smolenyak's latest book is both a fascinating genealogical detective story and a master class in how to dig deep into social history and bring meaningful context to ancestral lives. 

The real Annie Moore?

The author spent 22 years trying to determine the true story of Irish teenager Annie Moore, the first immigrant processed through Ellis Island on January 1, 1892. She brings us along on every step of her challenging genealogical journey, including constructing a paper trail and enlisting help to examine tantalizing clues on both sides of the pond. If you like learning about genealogical methodology as much as I do, you will be enthralled. 

Early in her search, Megan's research leads her to believe that history has been celebrating the "wrong Annie" for too many years. She sets out to uncover the "right Annie" and fill in the details of this Annie's life before and after arriving in New York Harbor at dinnertime on New Year's Eve of 1891. She has a lot of help along the way and sometimes just being in the right place at the right time works to her advantage. 

Beyond the paper trail

Megan breathes life into Annie Moore by painting a vivid picture of the time and place of her birth, upbringing, voyage to New York, and situation in America. Want to see how to apply social history to family history? Watch how the author skillfully weaves weather, housing, health, economy, occupation, names and more into the telling of Annie's true story. 

In the course of the book, we see photos emerge that put a real face on the true Annie Moore. In fact, the book has many interesting illustrations of genealogical documents, other photos, sketches, and more. I do wish the family tree on p. 135 could be shown a bit larger and in sharper detail, but that's a minor quibble. 

My three immigrant grandparents who came from Eastern Europe to America via 
Ellis Island might not have understood all the fuss over the first person to be processed through that institution, but I appreciate Megan Smolenyak setting the record straight on the real Annie Moore with this new book.