Thomas MacEntee’s Genealogy Masterclass: 10 Books to Elevate Your Ancestry Research Skills

Welcome, family history enthusiasts! If you’re looking to boost your genealogy research without breaking the bank, you’re in the right place. Thomas MacEntee – a well-known genealogy author, educator, and the “genealogy guy” behind Genealogy Bargains – has a treasure trove of genealogy books and cheat sheets on Amazon. These resources cover everything from organizing your research to uncovering hidden record sources. We’ve compiled all of Thomas MacEntee’s currently available genealogy books and cheat sheets (no out-of-print titles – only what you can get right now). Each item includes a brief description and a link so you can easily find these family history resources. Get ready to discover new tips, tricks, and tools to accomplish your genealogy goals!

Thomas MacEntee’s Genealogy Books (Amazon)

Thomas’s genealogy books are comprehensive guides and compilations that dive deep into family history topics. These titles are perfect for genealogists seeking detailed instruction, creative methodologies, or extensive lists of resources. Here are Thomas MacEntee’s available books on Amazon, each designed to help you level up your research:

The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook – A 12-step workbook program that guides you through “starting over” with your genealogy research. Thomas created the Genealogy Do-Over to help researchers set aside bad habits and rebuild their family trees from scratch with better practices. This workbook provides checklists, goal-setting exercises, and weekly tasks to ensure you document sources, track searches, and research methodically. It’s like a personal reboot for your family history journey – perfect for those frustrated with past mistakes who want a fresh start.

500 Best Genealogy & Family History Tips (2023 Edition) – A handy compilation of 500 expert tips covering all aspects of genealogy and family history research. This updated 2023 edition distills Thomas’s decades of experience into bite-sized advice on organization, online search strategies, DNA testing, record repositories, and more. With 500 tips at your fingertips, you’ll discover new resources and smarter techniques to find ancestors. It’s an easy-to-read reference you can dip into whenever you need a quick genealogy hack or a time-saving trick.

The Big Book of Genealogy Lists – Exactly what it sounds like: a big collection of genealogy lists! Thomas MacEntee has compiled numerous top-10 lists, checklists, and resource lists covering genealogy topics far and wide. Inside you’ll find lists of essential archives and databases, must-have genealogy tools, genealogy “dos and don’ts,” and creative ideas to break through brick walls. With a 4.8-star rating, this book is both informative and fun – a great way to discover new leads and ensure you’re not overlooking any sources in your family history search.

Tracing Your Roots in New York: The Best and Ultimate Guide for Genealogy – A specialized guide dedicated to New York genealogy research. If you have ancestors from New York (especially the city), you know how challenging those records can be. This ultimate guide walks you through the unique resources and strategies for finding New York birth, marriage, death, immigration, and naturalization records. Thomas provides tips on using NY-specific archives, navigating city and state record systems, and uncovering the “hidden” sources that many researchers miss. With this book, you’ll learn how to conquer New York’s archives like a pro (even if your ancestors changed their names at Ellis Island!).

AI and Genealogy: A Practical Guide to Summarizing, Transcribing, and Translating Historical Documents – A cutting-edge guide that brings technology into family history. AI and Genealogy explains how to use artificial intelligence tools to summarize old texts, transcribe handwritten records, and translate foreign documents. Thomas shows genealogists how to leverage modern AI services for tasks like reading cursive letters or extracting key information from lengthy wills and deeds. This practical guide (published in late 2024) helps you save time and overcome language or handwriting barriers by using AI – an exciting frontier in genealogy research!

Roots to Revenue – How to Start and Grow a Genealogy Business at Home – Have you ever thought about turning your genealogy passion into a side hustle or full-fledged business? In this book, Thomas (an entrepreneur himself) provides a roadmap for starting a genealogy business from home. You’ll learn how to identify niche services (family tree research for clients, photo organization, DNA coaching, etc.), set up your business legally, market to potential clients, and create multiple revenue streams in the genealogy field. With a 5-star rating, Roots to Revenue is an inspiring and practical guide for genealogists who want to make money doing what they love in family history.

Ancestor Sketch: How to Turn Years of Genealogy Research into a Captivating Family Story – This unique book helps you take your researched facts and weave them into an engaging narrative. After years of gathering names and dates, how do you share your family history in a compelling way? Ancestor Sketch shows you how to write ancestor biographies and family stories that will captivate your relatives. Thomas offers writing prompts, storytelling techniques, and examples of turning dry data into vivid stories. If you’re ready to transform research into a legacy narrative, this guide will spark your creativity and help you preserve your family stories for future generations.

Insider’s Ancestry.com Guide: Tips and Tricks for Deep-Dive Genealogy Research – A focused guide to getting the most out of Ancestry.com, the largest genealogy website. Even if you’ve used Ancestry for years, Thomas’s insider tips will show you new ways to uncover information. Learn advanced search techniques, little-known record collections, and strategies to break down brick walls on Ancestry. This guide also covers best practices for managing online trees, DNA tools on Ancestry, and avoiding common pitfalls. Given Ancestry’s vast size, having an insider’s roadmap can save you hours – and this book delivers exactly that for deep-dive researchers.

500 Amazing Online Archives and Digital Collections You’ve Never Heard Of: US Edition – A goldmine for researchers seeking lesser-known genealogy resources. This book lists 320+ “hidden” record sources (yes, over three hundred!) across the United States. Thomas highlights special archives, digital libraries, small databases, and niche collections that many genealogists overlook. From university digital archives to local historical society collections, each entry could hold the key to your ancestor’s story. With this checklist of archives in hand, you’ll be equipped to go beyond the usual websites and delve into new sources that reveal ancestral details you never thought to look for!

Can I Use That In My Genealogy? A Guide to Copyright and Family History Research – In this timely book (published January 2025), Thomas tackles an important question for genealogists: copyright law. When we find photos, documents, or published family histories, how can we use them ethically? This guide explains, in plain language, what you need to know about copyright when compiling your family history. It covers fair use, public domain materials, obtaining permissions, and how to properly credit sources. Can I Use That in My Genealogy? is an essential resource in today’s digital age – it keeps you on the right side of copyright law while you publish family stories or share genealogy finds online.

From Dust to Data: How ILCD and ICD Codes Can Guide Genealogical Journeys – A fascinating niche book that merges medical history with genealogy. ILCD and ICD codes are the numeric codes for causes of death used in death certificates and medical records. This guide shows how understanding these codes can enrich your family history research. Thomas explains how to decode cause-of-death terminology and use it to learn more about your ancestors’ lives and health. By exploring historical disease classifications, you might uncover patterns (for example, an inherited condition or an epidemic that affected your family) and gain deeper insight into your ancestors’ experiences. From Dust to Data turns dry death record codes into clues for contextualizing your ancestors’ stories.

Your Ancestors Await: Easy Internet Archive Hacks for Family Historians – One of Thomas MacEntee’s newest books (released in mid-2025), this guide unlocks the power of the Internet Archive for genealogists. The Internet Archive is a massive free digital library, and this book teaches you how to find genealogical gold in its collections. You’ll learn secrets to searching e-books, historical records, city directories, yearbooks, and even archived websites for family info. Thomas shares “print replica” tips and filtering tricks so you can quickly unearth hidden gems (like county histories, old genealogy society journals, or out-of-print books mentioning your ancestors). If you’re not using Internet Archive yet, get this book and prepare to be amazed at the family history resources you’ve been missing!

School Days, Family Ways: Find Your Ancestors Using Historical U.S. School Records – School records aren’t just report cards – they can be a family history treasure. In this guide, Thomas shows you how to tap into yearbooks, school census records, teacher registers, and other educational archives to learn about your ancestors’ youth. You’ll discover where to find old yearbooks and class photos, how to use school enrollment ledgers for genealogical clues, and ways school records can fill in gaps between census years. School Days, Family Ways opens a whole new world of research by looking at your ancestors’ academic lives – often an underutilized resource for genealogists. This easy-to-follow guide will have you reminiscing and researching at the same time, as you track down report cards and graduation programs that connect your family’s past to local school history.

Thomas MacEntee’s Genealogy Cheat Sheets
(Amazon Kindle)

In addition to full-length books, Thomas MacEntee has created a series of genealogy cheat sheets – concise, focused e-guides (usually in Kindle format, sometimes with print “quick guides”) that zero in on specific topics. These cheat sheets are like having Thomas’s expert tips in a bite-size format, perfect for quick reference. They often follow a “10 tips” format or cover a narrow subject in depth. Here are all the available cheat sheets by Thomas MacEntee:

Crack the Latin Code: A Quick-Reference Guide for Family Historians – A handy cheat sheet for anyone dealing with Latin-language records (common in Catholic church registers and old European documents). This guide provides common Latin terms, abbreviations, months, and phrases you’ll encounter in genealogical sources. With this quick-reference, you can translate Latin birth, marriage, and death entries without a headache. It’s an essential tool if your family research leads you to Latin America or Europe or to pre-20th-century church records that aren’t in English.

US World War I & II Records Cheat Sheet: Discovering 20th Century Soldiers – This cheat sheet cuts through the confusion of 20th-century U.S. military records. It outlines core WWI and WWII collections, explains how to find service records or draft registrations, and even shows you how to interpret them (including military abbreviations). Thomas highlights hidden gems like unit histories and burial files that can reveal a deeper story of your ancestor’s military service. If you’re researching an ancestor who fought in World War I or II, this guide will point you directly to the records and show you how to access them, saving you time on your mission to uncover their service details.

Ultimate Genealogy Records Checklist: 320+ Hidden Sources to Find Your Ancestors – A cheat sheet that lives up to the name ultimate! This is a comprehensive checklist of over 320 genealogical record sources, compiled by Thomas to ensure you’ve “left no stone unturned”. Use it as a to-do list for each ancestor: have you checked church records, occupational records, old newspapers, alumni directories, passport applications, etc.? Likely not all of them! The checklist is organized by category so you can systematically track which sources you’ve searched. It’s an invaluable resource when you feel stuck – just scan the list and you might spot a type of record you hadn’t thought of yet. Don’t let any ancestral clue slip by; this cheat sheet will keep you organized and thorough in your hunt for hidden records.

Say What? A Handy Phonetic & Spelling Guide for Genealogy – Ever struggle with name variations or misspellings in the records? This cheat sheet is a phonetic reference that helps you decipher and find alternate spellings of names. It lists common ancestor first names and surnames with various phonetic spellings, plus tips on Soundex codes and wildcard searching. For example, was “Schmidt” recorded as “Smith” or could “Catherine” be spelled “Kathryn” in a document? This guide will help you interpret names and nicknames so you don’t miss your ancestor just because a clerk spelled their name differently. It’s a must-have for tackling the wildcard world of historical spelling.

10 Smarter Search Strategies for Genealogy (Cheat Sheet) – A popular cheat sheet (rated 4.8★) that presents 10 expert search strategies to improve your genealogy results. Thomas shares smarter ways to use Google and genealogical databases: from clever keyword tricks and Boolean operators, to using site-specific searches and wildcards. These tips help you dig up information that basic searches miss, and they apply to genealogy websites, library catalogs, and general web searches alike. Even seasoned researchers will learn a new Google hack or two with this guide. If you’re tired of hitting dead-ends in search results, try these 10 strategies to search smarter, not harder.

Unlock Family Stories: Your Essential Cheat Sheet for Successful Interviews – One of the keys to genealogy is capturing living memory. This cheat sheet provides a step-by-step checklist for interviewing family members and recording their stories. It covers how to set up the interview, build trust and rapport, what questions to ask, and how to follow up. With Thomas’s tips, you’ll learn to conduct interviews that go beyond dates and places, yielding rich stories and personal insights. Use this guide to “unlock” stories from parents, grandparents, and relatives – preserving family history straight from the source. It’s an excellent resource for anyone planning to sit down with Aunt Mildred or Grandpa Joe to chat about the old days (and ensure you don’t forget to ask something important!).

10 Tips and Tricks for Military Records and Genealogy – A compact cheat sheet offering 10 essential tips to navigate military records in your genealogy. Military archives can be complex – this guide simplifies things with advice on obtaining service files, using military unit histories, understanding record loss (like the 1973 fire that destroyed many WWII personnel files), and finding alternative sources (draft cards, pension files, honor rolls, etc.). Whether you’re searching for a Civil War soldier or a 20th-century veteran, these tips will help you locate their records and glean more insight into their service. Military records often contain personal details and surprises; with Thomas’s tricks, you won’t miss out on those clues.

Insider’s Guide & Other Cheat Sheets – In addition to the above, Thomas has many other specialized cheat sheets (as PDF downloads from his site, some also available on Kindle). These cover topics like Google Books for genealogy, newspaper research, disaster records, technology tips (e.g., Excel and Word shortcuts for genealogists), and more. For example, “10 Google Books Tips for Genealogy” and “Historical Maps: 10 Tips for Genealogy” were offered as free PDFs, and may appear on Amazon intermittently during special promotions. Keep an eye on Genealogy Bargains for announcements of new cheat sheets or free download days – Thomas frequently shares these resources with the community. With over 35 different genealogy cheat sheets in his arsenal, there’s likely a guide for every research challenge you can think of!

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Get the Most Out of These Genealogy Resources

Thomas MacEntee’s Amazon offerings are ideal for genealogists at any level. Beginners will appreciate the clear how-tos and checklists, while advanced researchers will find fresh ideas and lesser-known sources to explore. To make the most of these books and cheat sheets, consider the current brick wall or project you’re working on and pick the resource that fits best. For example, struggling with organizing decades of research? Start with the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook. Need quick tech tips? Dive into a cheat sheet on search strategies or online archives. Each resource is packed with actionable advice, so have your family tree notes handy and be ready to try the tips as you read.

Conclusion

Whether you’re untangling old census records, planning a genealogy road trip, or digitizing a century’s worth of family photos, Thomas MacEntee’s genealogy books and cheat sheets can make the job easier and more enjoyable. These resources are budget-friendly (many of the Kindle cheat sheets are priced under a cup of coffee) and knowledge-rich. They exemplify Thomas’s belief that “knowledge is to be shared and not hoarded” – a principle we live by here at Genealogy Bargains.

We hope this comprehensive list helps you find exactly the guide you need. Equip yourself with a few of these books and cheat sheets, and watch your family history breakthroughs happen! Remember, every ancestor has a story – and with the right tools and tricks, you can be the one to uncover and preserve it. Happy researching, and may your genealogy journey be rewarding and fun!

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Author’s Note: I want to be transparent that this article – Thomas MacEntee’s Genealogy Masterclass: 10 Books to Elevate Your Ancestry Research Skills – was created in part with the help of an artificial intelligence (AI) language model – ChatGPT 5o PRO with Deep Reasoning. The AI assisted in generating an early draft of the article, but every paragraph was subsequently reviewed, edited, and refined by me. The final content is the result of extensive human curation and creativity. I am proud to present this work and assure readers that while AI was a tool in the process, the story, style, and substance have been carefully shaped by the author.

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