Stocking Your Library

By Andrea Sachs

FINDING YOUR ROOTS: HOW TO TRACE YOUR ANCESTORS AT HOME AND ABROAD by Jeane Eddy Westin (Tarcher/Putnam). Westin's updated book is the best friend a new family historian can have. Well organized and well researched, Finding Your Roots shows the reader how to make genealogy fun rather than drudgery--how to stay organized, the secret of keeping yourself from feeling as if you're up a family tree rather than building one.

GENEALOGY ONLINE FOR DUMMIES by Matthew L. Helm and April Leigh Helm (IDG). With its catchy prose, the book is an easy-to-read but thorough introduction to computer genealogy and a valuable tool for techies. There's noncomputer advice too.

HOW TO TRACE YOUR AFRICAN-AMERICAN ROOTS by Barbara Thompson Howell (Citadel) meets the special needs of the black genealogist, and the author's enthusiasm is contagious.

THE ANCESTRY FAMILY HISTORIAN'S ADDRESS BOOK by Juliana Szucs Smith (Ancestry). Whether you're looking for the phone number of the American Historical Association or the Jewell County, Kans., Historical Society, you'll find it here.

ME AND MY FAMILY TREE by Joan Sweeney (Crown). The book, for children five to eight, gives a child's-eye view of constructing a family tree: "First I start with me. Then comes my big brother, Alan. We're both part of my family tree." By catching them young, Sweeney promises to hook a new generation.

--By Andrea Sachs