James M. Beidler, Author

Published 2019!

The Family Tree Historical Atlas of Germany by James M. Beidler,.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

393 reviews

This new atlas gives you all the maps you need to research your German-speaking ancestors. More than a hundred full-color maps!

Published July 2017

The Best of Roots & Branches by James M. Beidler, Fifth Edition, published July 2017.

A compilation of the best columns published over 20 years, James M. Beidler’s The Best of Roots & Branches, is a must-have from a nationally known family history expert. The book offers practical information regarding methodology, case studies, websites, record groups, DNA, newspapers, and more. It’s organized by category—perfect for small snippets of reading time or a cover-to-cover binge. Articles from Pennsylvania's only syndicated family history newspaper column.

Published April 2016

Trace Your German Roots Online by James M. Beidler,.

Explore your Germanic heritage from the comfort of your own computer. This informative publication highlights important German resources on popular genealogy websites including Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, and Archion.de. With this guide’s helpful illustrated step-by-step instructions, you’ll learn how to use each site to its fullest potential for German genealogy.

Helpful Guide

Legacy QuickGuide™: German Genealogy by James M. Beidler

More Americans have German-speaking ancestry than any other ethnicity. While German research has challenges involving historical disunity and shifting boundaries – as well as older records handwritten in a chicken-scratchy version of cursive – the flip side is that many documents have survived wars and social disorder.

This handy 6-pg PDF guide contains useful information including a timeline of important events, terminology, migration patterns, record types and how to access those records.

Published 2014

The Family Tree German Genealogy Guide by James M. Beidler

Follow your family tree back to its roots in Bavaria, Baden, Prussia, Hesse, Saxony, Württemburg and beyond. This in-depth genealogy guide will walk you step by step through the exciting journey of researching your German heritage, whether your ancestors came from lands now in modern-day Germany or other German-speaking areas of Europe, including Austria, Switzerland, and enclaves across Eastern Europe.

Products Available

Jim has launched a line of three new products called From the Penns to the Present. The products enable property owners to learn the history of their land in the form of a book, album or frame. The book and album include a narrative (along with images of key documents and maps produced with DeedMapper software) tracing a property in Beidler’s home base of Pennsylvania from the Penn family in Colonial times to current day, while the framed product puts together a photograph of an early land record with a simplified deed chain surrounded by a frame and matting with an antique look.

Contact Jim for more information.

Deluxe Property History
Coffee Table Book

When a guest asks So what do you know about your property? … well, there’s no better answer than It’s all in the book on the coffee table. This volume gives the most-minute details on the history of the property and each of its occupants, all wrapped up in a handsome hardbound package designed to stand the test of time!

Contact Jim for more information.

Custom Property Album

For those who want to know every link in the chain of their land’s ownership, this product fills the bill with the details of that deed chain as well as a narrative about each of the owners as well as photographs and graphics of documents relating to the history of the property and the people who owned it! Makes a wonderful gift for either new or curious long-time property owners!

Contact Jim for more information.

Framed Property Certificate

This product, framed with quality materials that give it an antique look, combines a photograph of an early land record relating to your property with a simplified chain of ownership and/or short narrative about the original owner of the property … a wall hanging that every visitor to your house will ask you about! An excellent gift for owners of new properties!

Contact Jim for more information.

More frame styles are on pp. 13 & 14.