Secrets of Tracing Your Ancestors by E.Daniel Quillen

Published last year, this book is intended for the beginning researcher. "Getting Started", "Getting Organized", "Computers and the Internet", "Census Records", "Ethnic Research", and "Help Your Descendants!" are some of his chapter titles. Quillen keeps the chapters well focused and has some interesting sidebar boxes to connect the concepts covered to actual research from his own ancestral lines. At the end of each chapter, he provides a checklist as a summary and reminder and suggests additional resources.

The "Using DNA as a Research Tool" chapter is far too brief and doesn't adequately cover the latest developments that have been highly publicized in this new field and marvelous integration of types of research, scientific and genealogical, to begin to bridge gaps that have been merely the stuff of sci-fi up until recently. Still, overall, it is a conveniently sized "start-up" genealogy book for adults, who may not like the "For Dummies" format.