Arranged alphabetically by county. Within each county lists important agencies, court records, census records, and published sources to aid in local genalogical research.

The major part of this work is an alphabetically arranged and cross-indexed list of some 20,000 Maryland families with references to the sources and locations of the records in which they appear. In addition, there is a research record guide arranged by county and type of record, and it identifies all genealogical manuscripts, books, and articles known to exist up to 1940, when this book was first published. Included are church and county courthouse records, deeds, marriages, rent rolls, wills, land records, tombstone inscriptions, censuses, directories, and other data sources.

William Thomas Journey was born in 1820. His parents were John A. Journey and Elizabeth Green. He married Frances Miller in 1840 and had two children. He married Elizabeth Keckler in 1843 and had one daughter. He married Sarah Elizabeth Hamm in 1852 in Fairfield County, Ohio and they had nine children. He died in 1910 in Clarinda, Page, Iowa. Ancestors, descendants and relatives lived mainly in Germany, Maryland, Ohio, Iowa and Nebraska.

The earliest known ancestor was David Leist (ca. 1734-1802). He lived in Pennsylvania and was the father of Andrew Leist (1755-1821) who was also born in Pennsylvania. He married Elizabeth Landman and they were the parents of thirteen children. They both died in Ohio. Descendants live in Ohio and neighboring states.