In my DNA work, I often need to trace living members of families to ask them to take target tests. So when Cheri Hudson Passey’s new book Genealogy in Reverse: Finding the Living, A practical guide for all genealogists appeared in my letterbox, I was interested.
Genealogical Publishing sent me this book for free and have not asked me to review it, but I’m happy to do so and give my honest opinion.
At just 54 pages, this is more a long article than a full length book. The short chapters cover newspapers, social media, people finder sites, DNA and so on. It’s filled with practical advice. I use all these categories in my work and would have similar methods to the author, although I’m not working on soldier repatriation. The book is US-centric so doesn’t mention some important newspapers sites like the British Newspaper Archive, the Irish Newspaper Archives or Australian or New Zealand sites.
However, the editing and copywriting on this edition leaves a lot to be desired. The spacing is off, there are many typos, homonyms used (sink for sync when talking about using family tree software) and errors where the wrong link is referenced.
Similar to my frequent complaints with Pen & Sword books, all the images are in black and white, when they would benefit from colour. I wasn’t mad about the obvious AI art on the cover, but that’s just a personal opinion.
If you haven’t traced a family forward before, this book will give you solid starting guidelines.