Google Books

If you haven't used google book search, you may be missing out on useful help with your research. I have used it for a couple of years and recently passed on this info to a distant cousin who didn't know about it. I had found some family info in a local history book and sent her the info along with the link for the book to download. Why buy a book, you might not even find elsewhere, when you can download it or just search by surname or location. It is easy and helpful. Happy hunting! :)

Google Book Search

Use fonts without installing

While searching for some new fonts, I found a way to use a font without actually installing it. Double click the downloaded font file, double click the .ttf file; while it is open (when you can view the examples of the font) you can use it. This is great if you want to just try out a font. Of course you can use The Font Thing to have all those extra fonts on hand, but I did like the fact that I can also just open up the file and check out how a new font might look and be able to use it right then and there.

This is the link that explains how to install a font, and the note how to use it in your program, ex. PSE or PS:
http://www.dafont.com/faq.php

David Rumsey maps and Google maps

I just found out that David Rumsey has taken 120 of his thousands of maps, digitized them and they can be used to lay over Google maps to see the difference in changes over time. These maps cover the time period 1680 to 1930.

This is a neat tool for looking at how things have changed, especially useful for genealogy.

http://rumsey.geogarage.com/gmaps.html