Maybe it's cabin fever, maybe its Covid isolation reaction, whatever, I've felt an urge to look at travel and tourism guides! Read any good local histories lately? Maybe you’ve found a glowing biography of your ancestor’s brother in a 19th century mug book. You know the type—”George came to Smithtown with his parents and five brothers and sisters when he was three years old.” Precocious, wasn’t he? If the book had named the parents and siblings, you might have some proof of family connection, albeit secondary. But some editor determined that non-resident parents and siblings were not essential to the story. Local histories provide invaluable tidbits of information. Imagine reading that your ancestor was the first white child born in Houston County, Minnesota, or that the elderly chief of the nearby tribe always found a warm welcome at your family’s home on a snowy night.   A recent search for US tourist travel books at books.google.com revealed some astonishing and inval...