I was doing some Googling the other day and stumbled into a few internet archive websites. These websites allow you to download (free) a scanned copy of old books that are no longer copyrighted.

Here is a link to two books about Galloway, Scotland (where my family is originally from): http://www.archive.org/search.php?qu...-%20History%22

Another good archive website is Google Books at: http://books.google.com/

These websites have a search feature that will find keywords in the books on the website, so you don't need to know the title of a book to find the information you want.