Ancestry Magazine

As I write this note to you, I am attending the American Library Association Conference. Participating in meetings, listening to librarians, and walking the conference floor, I am reminded of the tremendous treasure we have in our library system, how we tend to take this incredible resource for granted, and what we must do to see that libraries will be able to survive and continue their far-reaching missions.

Malcolm Forbes (son of a Scottish immigrant who founded Forbes magazine) said, “The richest person in the world couldn’t provide you with anything like the endless, incredible loot available at your local library. You can measure the awareness, the breadth and the wisdom of a civilization, a nation, a people, by the priority given to preserving these repositories of all that we are, all that we were, or will be.”

Thirty years ago, as I began my own family history research, librarians in what was then a tiny public library in Midlothian, Illinois, became my good friends and collaborators. In those pre-Roots days, finding long-lost family was more difficult than it is now. There was only one how-to genealogy book in our library, but it provided the fundamental principles of good research. Together we learned how to do genealogy. We learned to find records to trace my New York, English, French, German, and Irish ancestors. When the librarians heard about a class being offered by a genealogical society in the area, they were thoughtful enough to call and let me know about it. There was no end to their help and kindness.

In the 1970s, when census records were hard to come by, these librarians found a place where they could borrow microfilmed census records and they allowed me to put a deposit on the microfilm reader (that no one else used) so I c ould take the census rolls home. There were no indexes then, so I spent countless hours poring over the microfilmed pages of the original census records for New York City, looking for Kellys and Millers and some with thankfully less-common names. My friends even found a way to get New York City histories and old Brooklyn newspapers on interlibrary loan for me.

Over the years I found myself more and more deeply immersed in family history. Along with my own family research, I was doing professional research for clients, then teaching, lecturing, and writing on the subject. It didn’t take long to realize how much I depended on librarians to be successful in my work.

Libraries, I discovered, are as unique as individuals, each reflecting the histories and personalities of the people they serve. Many have one-of-a-kind collections that go way beyond the traditional books we expect to find. An amazing number of libraries include rare local history books and manuscripts, photographs, scrapbooks, yearbooks, obituary files, cemetery transcriptions, oral histories, records of local businesses and occupational records, and more. Many libraries have partnered with local genealogical societies, enabling both sides to provide projects and services to preserve and make available the records that are critical to family history research.

Yet, libraries are suffering the effects of a national economic downturn. There are 16,090 public libraries, 3,408 academic libraries, 98,169 school libraries, 9,691 special libraries (corporate, law, medical libraries), 352 Armed Forces Libraries, and 1,874 U. S. Government libraries in the United States. An alarming number of them are beginning to face new hurdles in obtaining basic funding resources. Lawmakers across the nation are slashing library budgets and special grants, resulting in staff cuts, reduced hours of operation, a hold on acquisitions and programming, stalled building programs, even the closing of some libraries hardest hit when thei r community livelihood collapsed.

From large libraries like the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress to the smaller libraries like the one in my hometown, citizens of all ages and from all backgrounds depend on libraries as readily available information sources. Experienced family historians realize that they need libraries not only as they begin their search for family, but throughout the process as new information leads to the need for knowledge and records in new places and sources. No matter what stage of research we are in, libraries can provide incredible assistance. What are we doing to ensure that the libraries we need will survive and grow in order to serve this and future generations? Let’s take time to become acquainted with our librarians and find out what we can do to help out.