If I have not said this before, I love the internet archive.  I imagine that the sentiment is shared by anyone trying to dig up old information.  I have been saved by books digitized by the internet archive in my work, and in my private genealogy research.

I also love the Public Domain Review.  It is almost like a best of the internet archive, in that it pulls out items of interest like the Curiosities of Puritan nomenclature (1888).  Of course, the Public Domain Review also highlights items of curiosity in other places all over the net.  It is a great place to find archival collections of all sorts that are normally not easy to pull out of a [insert name of search engine here] search.

Now if you, like me, have spent some real time with genealogical research then you have spent time with the nitty gritty of history.  You have read over land grants, court transcripts, and small claims; you have dissected the language of historical sketches and town diaries written hundreds of years ago; you have wondered why 15 men within two generations of the same family are named Vine.  So books like the Curiosities of Puritan nomenclature (1888) are interesting because they explain why surnames came about at all, where they came from, why there are so many Rogers and Johns, and much more.