Biographies for Sale at the StLGS Trading Post and Beyond

Do you often wish someone had written a biography or family history to help move your genealogy along? Maybe someone did write an article or a book. You can use search engines to find books about your family, or you can see if someone has donated a book to the StLGS Trading Post, where we sell gently-used history and genealogy books donated to the society by members and friends.

Currently, we have nineteen titles in the Trading Post, as noted below. All of the books in the Trading Post are very reasonably priced, as you can see. If you are interested in a book, send an email to sales@stlgs.org. We will let you know the cost of postage, and once we receive your check or credit card information for the cost of the book plus postage, your book will be on its way. 

(Our Trading Post occupies a section of shelves in the front lobby of our office; photo by Ilene Murray; used with permission.)

Available Biographies Include: 

• A History of American Descendants of George Hadley; Reydon Parish, Suffolk Shire, England and Leo George Hadley, Sr., St. Louis, Missouri, Hadley, Willis, Lean, Sr. (St. Louis, Missouri: Genealogical Research and Productions, 1985), hardback, $5.00 
• Ancestry of Willis Dean Hadley With His Descendants, Parkin, Robert (no publication information or date), softcover, $1.00 
• Boyhood on The Upper Mississippi: A Reminiscent Letter, Lindbergh, Charles A., (Minnesota Historical Society, 1972), softcover, $1.00 
• Deepwater Family, Duncan, Fred B., (Pantheon Books, 1969), hardback, $1.00 
• Genealogical Memoirs of Various Families of Tomkinson 1620–1904, Tomkinson, Newton Powers, (Self-published, 1904), softcover, $2.00 
• Genealogy of the Stokes Family, Descended From Thomas and Mary Stokes, who settled in Burlington County, New Jersey, Haines, Richard (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical  Society, 1913, reprint), hardback, $10.00 
• Honey Island: A Broadcaster's Search for His Mississippi Roots (autographed, 2 copies), Hunter, Julius F., (Virginia Publishing, 1999), softcover,  $5.00 
• Keith Kinfolks: Descendants of James Keith, Sr. From 1720 to 1979, King, Larry (Self-Published, 1979), hardback,  $5.00 
• Like It Was: A Family History, Schertel, Dorothy Hussmann (St. Louis, Missouri: Nabor News Print, 1976), softcover, $1.00 
• Mayflower Families in Progress: William Bradford of the Mayflower and His Descendants for Four Generations, Wakefield, Robert S. and Lee D. van Antwerp. (General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1994), softcover, $1.00 
• Old Stories in a New Land, Morey, Janet and Gail Schafers (St. Louis, Missouri: M & S Press, 2005), hardback, $2.00 
• Olschwanger Journal 5744 + 5745, Olschwanger, Anna, editor, (no publication information),  softcover, $1.00 
• Our Ancestral Witch (2 copies), Hadley, Willis, Lean, Sr. (St. Louis, Missouri: Genealogical Research and Productions, no date), softcover, $1.00 
• So It Has Been Told: William (Indian Billy) Ice (1725–1826) and some of his Descendants, Rowe, Carolyn L. (self-published, no date), softcover, $1.00 
• The Descendants of Governor Thomas Welles of Connecticut (1590–1658) and his Wife, Alice Tomes, Siemiatkoski, Donna Holt (Gateway Press, 1990), hardback, $3.00 
• The Kaelson Family (no author or publication information), softcover, $1.00 
• The Morrisons: Minneapolis pioneers: from Dorilus, first Mayor, to modern times, Morrison, Clinton (self-published, 1989). hardback, $3.00 
• Wilson a Family Profile: With Ashley, Ball, Barker, Bowen, Nixon, Pope, Sugg, Swain, Adams, Gwendolyn (Utica, Kentucky: McDowell Publications, no date), hardback, $2.00

And for Just the Price of Postage . . .

We have three copies of these beautiful portraits of Charles Lindbergh that were created by the U.S. Postal Service in 1977 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his historic trans-atlantic flight. They are on heavy paper with a postmarked commemorative stamp on each. They are titled "Spirit of St. Louis Limited Edition," with artwork by J. Wilbur Gonterman, St. Louis. 

If you are interested, please contact StLGS at sales@stlgs.org, and, once you have paid for the postage, one or more can be yours.

More Places to Search for Family Histories

If you do not find your family history in our holdings, try a search in Google Books (https://books.google.com/) for your surnames or those of people who married into the family. Not all books are available to be read on Google Books due to copyright restrictions, but this site may help you find books of interest. 

FamilySearch Digital Library (https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/) has more than 500,000 genealogy books, family histories, maps, and yearbooks, and others. Again, some of these are available to be read on the website. 

Other sources to find family genealogies include: 

• HathiTrust Digital Library (https://www.hathitrust.org/)
• Internet Archive Open Library (https://openlibrary.org/),
• Library of Congress Catalog (https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/searchBrowse).

Try catalog entries for local and statewide historical and genealogical societies and libraries in the locale where the family lived. For St. Louis, search the St. Louis County Library website (https://www.slcl.org/) or the St. Louis Public Library catalog, now combined with St. Louis County Library at https://www.slpl.org/catalog/. A search of one catalog includes the holdings of the other library system. Don’t forget to look at local municipal libraries. Did your family live in Maplewood, Kirkwood, University City, or Webster Groves? Each of those municipalities still maintains its own library system. 

Also, for St. Louis look at the catalog for the Missouri Historical Society Library and Research Center (https://explore.searchmobius.org/search~S2). Their website states, “the Library & Research Center houses the premier regional history collection documenting St. Louis, the state of Missouri, the Mississippi and Missouri Valleys, the Louisiana Purchase Territory, and the American West.” Then move to the state level and check out what is available at the State Historical Society of Missouri (https://shsmo.org/).  

And, finally, if you find a book you are interested in but cannot find it online or in your local library, go to WorldCat (https://www.worldcat.org/), which will help you locate a copy of the book in the library or archive closest to your location.

(Many thanks to StLGS sales manager, Viki Fagyal, for writing this week's blog post!)