I must say that I love Google Books! It is amazing what you can find there.
I have often written book review of printed books and of books on CD-ROM disks. In fact, many of the CD-ROM disks are "electronic reprints" of old books. However, today I thought I would describe an "electronic reprint" that is available online. Biographical History of North Carolina from Colonial Times to the Present, written in 1905 by C.L. Van Noppen, is a great work for anyone researching North Carolina ancestry. Now every word of it is available online. Best of all, you can download the entire book at no charge and then view it again and again.
The Biographical History of North Carolina from Colonial Times to the Present contains articles on persons prominent in North Carolina, as well as articles about the times in which they lived. Like many of the so-called "mug books," this book describes the leading citizens of the area but neglects most of the commoners. An index of those described can be found here and on the following pages. The book also contains portraits of many of the people mentioned.
Biographical History of North Carolina from Colonial Times to the Present is but one of the thousands of books now available as part of Google's book scanning project. You can either view the entire book online or download a PDF file of it to your hard drive, where you can refer to it time and again. If you wish, you can even print the entire book on your local printer.
The PDF images are clear and distinct. I found the text to be easy to read. The book has an index that you can use as with any written book, but the index and text are not computer-searchable.
The Biographical History of North Carolina from Colonial Times to the Present may be found here.
