Thanks to Gregory for his nice comment. The real credit for the web site goes to the web designer, Eric Spellmann, whose firm created the site, with much input from me, of course.
We have added about 75 additional items to the Store in the past two months. We have been concentrating recently on the New England area, and will be moving southward and westward in our search for good, early genealogical material. We recently acquired a late 190th century work(soon to be listed)which contains the *real and full* 1790 census of Boston, not one reconstructed from tax records, and we have some huge books(over 1000 pages)soon to be listed on numerous areas of New England, and one on the early Norwegien immigrants to Minnesota. So keep visiting us – we’re adding items as fast as we can and heading toward your ancestor’s state . Stay tuned…….bookmark us and visit frequently.

Well, we don’t seem to be doing much blogging, so I’ll try to kick things off a bit by asking you to let me know what you would like to see offered here. By that, I mean such things as: what state(s) are you researching; what counties’ records would you like to see digitized(remembering that we don’t digitize records that have been published unless the published versions are out of print); what books are you looking for, etc?

Just as a matter of information, I have the appeals court opinions of thousands of cases heard by the various states(and even in some cases, such as NM and AZ, when they were still territories). Many of these can be gold mines of information, especially if the appeal involves an estate argument between a family. One of  these cases I recently saw carried the family history back 5 generations, to the water’s edge. While this type of detail is unusual, these appeals court case opinions are often very valuable for those counties with burned courthouses, if the original case was appealed. So look for these in the days to come, from all over the U.S.  Each volume in the catalog will show the names of the plaintiff(s) and defendant(s) and other associated surnames where possible.

We have just added the contents of Volume 6 of the huge work, Contemporary Biographies of New York, to the catalog. This series of books was published in 1890. The original books were beautifully done, with gilded edges, gold titling, 30 pound paper and steel engraving of  the portraits of each person who biography appears in the books. Time, of course, has taken its toll on the exterior, but the interior is pristine.  I hope to get the remainder of this series of books as we go along. So have a look – if you have relatives or ancestors in the New York area, you may find a biography of one of them there.

As I mentioned in the first shop.gbs newsletter just sent out, we are ready to start blogging about the various subjects I mentioned, such as genealogical materials needed, what items you would like to see digitized first, what states you research in  the most – almost anything genalogical. As I said in the newsletter, inquiries about particular families would probably better be posted to the appropriate RootsWeb mailing list, since their coverage will be greater than either the either this blog or the newsletter. Let’s hear from you! 

Check out our new Books on Sale category. We have about 100+, books featuring North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. They are all priced at $10.99, regardless of size, and there are a number of large volumes in the group. Go take a look – there may be something in the group that you need for your area of research.

We have added 20+ used books to our store, and more are to come. Most are in new, pristine, or excellent condition. Some are quite rare. Please take a look and see if any of them might be of interest/use to you in your research. We have even included an historical novel or two. To view, just click on the  ”Shop Now” tab at the top of the home page, then go to the bottom of the list of states on the page that appears and click on “Used”.

We are working on digitizing records from the Carolinas, Virginia and other states. It is a slow process, but we will get them stocked in the store as soon as possible.

We are now past our Grand Opening stage, and are working hard to stock our new store with materials from all over the nation. We continue to have an abundance of Kentucky and Tennessee items, with more coming, and we are adding North Carolina, Texas, and all other states as we obtain new materials for them. One of our latest additions, Bakers of Western Kentucky,  by Peggy Brown Chapman, is  now available in print again for the first time in a decade, in either bound or E-Book format, has been very popular, as Peggy covered thousands of surnames in her book beyond just that of Baker, and showed many North Carolina connections as well. We have just obtained the original ledger of Henry Moulton, created in the 1860′s, which was the basis for his later, extensive book on that family. We hope to be able to offer both the book, and his earlier notes, which go back into the 1600′s very soon. And we intend to start digitizing microfilm of unpublished county records in t he near future.  It is a slow process, of course. We have some 1200 more items to add to the store, plus the digitizations so there is much to look forward to. We also wil be enlarging our used book section, and don’t forget to check the “Surnames” tab at the bottom of the state listings in the catalog.  We also want to know what you  are trying to find in the way of books, or unpublished county records that can be digitized. So please don’t hesitate to post your needs here on the blog. We’ll do our best to find them. Please remember that copyrighted books(after 1923) are genrally “off-limits”, except in those cases in which the material within them is public domain(such as marriage records, cemetery records, wills, etc.).

You’ll soon be seeing our presence on Google, and the other search engines,as we expand our advertising base. Be sure and bookmark our site, and sign up for your newsletter, then check back with us from time to time, as we will be growing constantly in the months to come. Good hunting!