The authors are to be commended for completing this project, which was originally started in the 1940s by the National Youth Administration, but was abandoned when funds were no longer available. This collection of abstracts, including birth, death and other miscellaneous news items, will be useful to both professional and amateur genealogists, not only for the information the abstracts contain, but also for the clues they give to finding further information. For ease of use, the abstracts are arranged alphabetically by surname. This volume contains several valuable research tolls in addition to the abstracts. First, a very informative section that contains letters written by children. These letters often reveal important details of family history, such as, "Daddy went to California to work in the gold mines. I have a sister named Sally, she is eight years old. I had a little brother named Tommy but he died." The next part, Communications and Editorial Correspondence, contains interesting letters and comments from the newspaper's readers. Another section includes selected news articles, chosen for their historical or genealogical value. An index of names of the dozens of ships which were featured in many news stories in included. Finally, the other newspapers which contributed information to the Farmer (and the cities in which they were published) are listed alphabetically for quick reference.
