One place to pick up some good information about ancestors are from books online. Heritage Quest has hundreds of books that are searchable by surname and placename. Libraries are your best source for this data base and it is usually free for the library patrons. There is also the Making of America online data base from Cornell University. It has local history books and books and journals about the Civil War. Michigan has a Making of America for the state of Michigan as well. If any one knows of other states or Universities have the Making of America online data base, please let me know.

Here are the links for these two sites:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moagrp/

http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/index.html