The best history books are packed with stories and facts about everyday people.

In 2019, while reading such a book, Great Plains, I realized that the facts and stories I was reading were the kinds of things a genealogist would LOVE to discover about their ancestors.

It made me wonder, how could I let others know that their ancestors were mentioned in this book. How could I ever—possibly—discover whether any of MY people are mentioned in a history book? Even the best online searches don’t penetrate all history books or deliver their contents to the first few pages of search results.

That’s why I created Lost in Plain Sight, a crowdsourced database of names and other information about people found in popular and academic history books. I’m entering names from the books I’ve read, and I invite you to do the same through a simple form on this website.

Remember to tell your friends and coworkers about this website as well, since more people using it and contributing to it will be the only way for it to expand and benefit others.