The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Winter 1988, Volume 34, Number 1
Thomas L. Scharf, Editor
Book Notes
Raymond Starr, Book Review Editor
A Bibliography of American County Histories.
Compiled by P. William Filby. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1985. 449 Pages.
A Bibliography of American County Histories is a helpful bibliography. It is organized by state, and then by county, and is strongest on the large number of county histories published between about the 1880s and the first world war. The entries are not annotated, and there is no index. The bibliography includes only county histories, which seems to be defined rather narrowly. For instance, on San Diego, Filby includes the histories by W.W. Elliott, Samuel Black and Clarence McGrew, all of which have the word “county” in their title; he does not include the book by W.A. Smyth, which really has a similar scope. The bibliography would be most useful as a starting point for research on areas for which you do not have much background.
