Resource Library & Benefits
Whether you want a full deep dive before you begin or a quick reference beside you while you work, these guides are built to help you move through Appalachian records with more confidence and less wasted time.
The Essential Research Series volumes are full-length ebooks. Each one teaches you how to understand an entire category of Appalachian research from the ground up. You get the history behind the records, the method for using them, and state-by-state repository guidance along the way. They are meant to give you the background and method before you start searching, not just another quick reference sheet.
The issue guides are shorter, but they are built for actual use. They give you record overview tables, signal charts, search notes, repository leads, worksheets, and room for your own findings. A guide might show what a warrant names that a docket does not, why a sheriff’s fee book can matter when the jail register is gone, or how a surety name can point toward kin and neighbors. Each one is meant to help you work a specific Appalachian record problem with more direction.
The subscription is for researchers who want the steady library as it grows. Most weeks bring about two new issue guides, with Essential Research Series ebooks added as they are published, plus the Ancestor Deep Dive benefit and other subscriber-only material. It is $15 a month or $144 a year. If you only need one topic right now, individual copies are available too: $5 for issue guides and $8 for Essential Research Series ebooks.
With a paid subscription, you receive:
Essential Research Series ebooks focused on Appalachian sources, record types, and harder research problems
Issue Companions are substantial, printable research guides and workbooks that combine context, record guidance, worksheets, prompts, and practical tools for Appalachian family history research
Monthly-subscriber-only posts with deeper context and additional research support
Monthly-subscriber-only discussions and chats for a more connected research community
Ancestor Deep Dive: Monthly subscribers can submit a request to have an ancestor researched. Findings are published as a blog post, returning one more story to the people who carry it forward.
Much more coming…
Subscription: $15 per month or $144 per year.
Note: The new members area is under construction. The 2025 Archive can still be downloaded below. The 2026 editions and the Essential collection are in the new members area. Click here to contact us if you have difficulty accessing the members area.
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The mountains remember because people like you refuse to let them forget.
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📚 The Resource Library - downloadable research guides to take your research further
