In a message dated 7/2/98 5:32:13 PM Central Daylight Time, davis4@psln.com writes: << GenTips-L@rootsweb.com >> An atlas is indeed an essential. However, new atlases in the bookstores aren't always comprehensive, nor are the really good ones cheap. I bought a couple at a Goodwill store which do just as well for genealogy purposes, being older & having some of the older information. I also have my own criteria for whether an atlas (new or used) is worth buying: If I can find Jacquet River, New Brunswick (up on the Chaleur Bay), Bennington, Idaho (5 miles north of Montpelier in the SE corner), or Osby, Oland, Sweden (a tiny spot on the end of the island of Osland in Sweden), it will probably have anything else I might want to look up if it were actually a town. Pick your own tiny town, or borrow mine. These are small enough that they don't make it to all of them. If we're going to talk about "essential" books to invest in for the home researcher, either get Everton's "The Handy Book" which lives up to its name for American Research, or get the new LDS Source Guide CD Rom which will give much of the same information, plus other things. Karen