Governors of New Jersey (revised and updated), Roadside Geology of New Jersey, Lambertville’s Legacy and Land Records of Bucks County.
Sources
New Jersey’s Covered Bridges
Richard J. Garlipp, Jr. New Jersey’s Covered Bridges, Images of America, Arcadia Publishing, 2014.
If you’ve ever had first hand knowledge of a story in the newspaper, chances are you’ve said to yourself, “the reporter got it wrong.” This also happens with books, including this one. Mr. Garlipp has long been a student of the history of covered bridges, and has undertaken a large and under-reported subject. But Arcadia books are not held to a very high standard and do not engage in fact-checking, so the results are sometimes a disappointing mixture of fact and fantasy. History is challenging, and mistakes are all too easy to make, as I have often learned to my dismay. I just wish this book had been better.
House Histories, part two
This is the second part of my article on how to do a house history, published March 29th. If you followed through with that article, you will now have a more or less complete chain of title. So, what next?
Step Four. Flesh Out the Story
A chain of title for your property is wonderful to have, but, really, all it is is a list of names, dates and sources. There’s no story there. It’s not really very interesting until you start digging and learn about who these people were, what their lives were like. Were they rich, poor, farmers, merchants? Were they important in their community? Did they get into trouble? This is where genealogical skills come into play.