52 Weeks To Better Genealogy - Challenge #6

When I'm in the United States, the Tulsa City-County Library is my library. And I love it. Every single location, but especially the Genealogy Center at the corner of Harvard Avenue & 29th Street (for obvious reasons).

This weeks challenge is to find Online databases at your public library. And our library has them, sometimes even if you don't have a library card (I've heard the librarians giving out temporary "visitor" cards to those without regular cards). There are a few web based databases available for use: Edition, Heritage Quest, New England Ancestors, and Footnote; these are only available for use in the Genealogy Center branch of the library. Ancestry.com is available at all the library branches. There are also web links to the Broken Arrow Genealogical Society, FamilySearch.org, the Family History Center (the library's own web site), National Archives & Records, Oklahoma County Section Line Maps, Oklahoma Historical Society, Tulsa County page at US GenWeb, Social Security Death Index, State Archives Referral List, Tulsa Genealogical Society, Tulsa Historical Society, US GenWeb & Where to write for Vital Records. All that, AND, links to the websites for the Five Civilized Tribes.

All these last web links can be access from any computer, anywhere with internet access.

In the library is one computer with many different CD's installed on it. I don't have the list in front of me, but one I remember is the German Immigrants one (since I recently accessed it). They also have CD's of births

That's a bunch of information. Now if I could just access some extra hours to view it all...

In Praise of Hometown Libraries

Since I last wrote, I've had little time for any research at all, but yesterday I was able to take a long awaited road trip to a town the Deller's lived in for years, Coffeyville, Kansas.

More than once during my library visit, I said to the librarian, "I love this library!" She replied, "That's only because you've found something." And she was right, in a way. Even when I don't find information, I love being in libraries, but yesterday I found something because they are repository for the local newspaper, The Coffeyville Journal. And the local historical society had also taken the time to create at least a dozen books of obituaries from that newspaper, making it even easier to find obituaries.

Yes, I WAS a happy camper, to find obituaries and news articles that linked family members and introduced me to new family I didn't even know were there. I will be returning, there was just too much to absorb in one visit; and I'm looking forward to that just as much as I did to yesterday's visit

I know it'd difficult for many people to make trips like this (it's taken me more than six months to be in the right place at the right time), but if and when you get a chance to visit, don't pass it up. Those libraries hold gems for the mining.