My wife and I love history and genealogy of the family. Often, by the difficulty in finding published genealogical records in old rare books, sometimes self-published. We’d love to find the owners of copyright of these books and see if it would open the public domain or a permissive license. How can we find the owners of copyright, especially since most of the original authors have died? If we find the right holder, who must sign a release form allowing the contents or index family to participate freely on the Internet?