Time for
some library fun! Can “library” and “fun”
be in the same sentence? I think so if
you enjoy hours and hours of researching a library, rich with genealogical
resources. Like the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, IN. It’s the second largest genealogy library in
the United States, and the biggest collection in a public library.
This library
has been on my bucket list for over 10 years, and I finally drove the four
hours to Fort Wayne this past weekend. I
belong to a genealogy group, CAGGNI, which planned a three day, two night
outing, Thursday-Saturday. Besides reserving library time and tour, the group
arranged the hotel, which was just two blocks away. We received a group hotel discount,
free breakfast and free parking. We had a speaker come for a CAGGNI meeting who
gave ideas on how to best use the library about 2 months before. She suggested
looking at YouTube for videos with more ideas, which I did.
ACPL! What a
wonderful place to research! I prepared a couple of weeks in advance by going
on the library’s website, aptly named: http://www.genealogycenter.org/
where I used the ACPL catalog to find books
I’d want to use in my research. I mostly searched by place names or surnames. Call
me old fashioned, but I printed out the list of books I wanted for each
location and brought these lists with me. I had about a dozen subjects for
which I printed out the books titles and call numbers.
On Thursday,
after checking into the hotel, I walked two blocks to the ACPL arriving at
about 2:30 PM. With me was my laptop, the lists, a laptop lock, notebook and
plenty of pens. Using the map that the speaker provided (there are plenty at
the library too, on pink paper – very helpful) I took a cart (a suggestion from
the YouTube video) and filled it with books from Rhode Island and
Massachusetts. Found a table, took out my laptop, locked it to a table leg, and started happily hunting for ancestors. Soon
a couple of others from the CAGGNI group joined the table. Then I started
seeing other people I recognized scattered throughout the library.
The library
is in a modern building with plenty of windows. Most tables have electrical plugs.
Allen County Public Library covers a city block and it is large bright. The
genealogy information is on the second floor and takes up two large rooms. One
houses the microfilm, and books on states east of the Mississippi. In the other
room, the biographical genealogies line the large room. There are many city
directories, general genealogy books, and books covering states west of the
Mississippi and countries outside of the United States.
Thursday
night the library is open until a glorious 9:00 PM. Snacking in the lobby on
fruit that I’d brought, I and one other club member stayed until closing. I
made it through about a third of my book list and had a general idea of where
to find the various materials. With the time change, and long summer days, it
was still very light outside walking back to the hotel.
The next day
the CAGGNI group met at 9:00 AM in the genealogy room for a group photo and a
tour, by John Beatty, Genealogy Librarian, whom I recognized from the videos. The
website has his impressive resume; he’s worked there since 1984. Dressed in a
pressed suit, he gave us a wonderful tour and some interesting historical
information.
Some historical
highlights are that in the 1960’s a librarian manager who was NOT a
genealogist, recognized that there would be more traffic if more genealogy
books were added to a collection of under 1000 books they had. His name was
Fred Reynolds, and when he left more than a dozen years later, they had
thousands of books through some creative ideas. He asked another library,
Newberry Library in Chicago, if the ACPL could make copies of their books. The
story goes that college students drove station wagons full of books, back and
forth between Chicago and Fort Wayne. If I understood correctly, ACPL made two
bound copies of out-of-copy-right books, one for ACPL and one for Newberry. It
was a win-win situation. Newberry Library, got the fragile book returned, a
copy of a fragile book for patrons to use and ACPL received another copy of the
book. There was also trading of duplicate books between several libraries.
The library
also gives an option to make two free bound copies of someone’s genealogy work,
one for the writer/researcher and one for ACPL. They have thousands of these genealogies,
in alphabetical order – some wonderful, some not so much. You can use the index
at the library to find surnames not listed in the titles.
One other
large collection is of Polk City directories. The ACPL worked out an
arrangement that they received a copy of many of their city directories
starting in the 1960’s. These are mostly used for real estate research but
would be helpful to genealogists also.
Other
collections include microfilms of ship manifests, censuses, some newspapers and
many other items. Several online subscription websites are available if you are
in the library – either on a laptop brought in, or on the many computers
available for researchers. Of course, ACPL is known for the creation of PERSI. The
library has a large collection of many historical and genealogy society
periodicals. They are indexed similar to the Periodical Research Guides we used
in high school for magazines. PERSI was a creation of ACPL, and the index is
currently on http://www.findmypast.com/ .
All the periodicals are at the library.
Okay, so
back to Friday morning’s tour. After that, we all settled into our chairs and
started more research. I and a few others stayed until the library closed at
6:00 PM and then we all had an enjoyable dinner at a local popular restaurant. Yummy
and fun to find out what everyone learned.
I stayed at
the library until noon on Saturday. Three joyous days of research. Learning so
many new pieces of information about my family. The drive back was longer than
expected, but I was so happy, it didn’t matter. Also, I stopped and filled the
car with gas, which is much cheaper in Indiana than the Chicagoland area. A
good tip if you live where gas is expensive.
What else
did I learn? I did have one somewhat embarrassing situation with the
genealogist librarian help desk. I happened to go to the help desk when Curt
Witcher, who is the “face of Allen County Genealogy Library” and its manager
was there. My question? Where do I fill money on the plastic card needed to
make copies? I did not see the white
machine on the white post. (Can they paint the post another color to make it
easier – like green?) So one of the most famous genealogists walked me to the post and showed me how to use
it!
I had
everything I needed on the trip. But I wish I would have brought some of those
sticky notes or tabs to mark pages where I wanted to copy pages. For bookmarks,
I ended up tearing blank pages from my notebook instead. Rather messy, but
workable. I did not have time to research the PERSI information or the items on
microfilm. The former index is on Findmypast, which they have at the library.
Eleven pages of information about using the print and microfilm indexes is on
the ACPL website at the bottom of pathfinders>getting started page. It
really helps you find information that might be hidden otherwise. Currently the
link is: http://www.genealogycenter.org/docs/defaultsource/resources/microtextguide.pdf?sfvrsn=2
Fort Wayne
is a family town. Lots of restaurants near the library. If you bring your
family, there is a zoo, and science and firefighters’ museums. They have a
baseball team, the Tincups that are very popular and well attended. Fireworks
on Friday nights. Lots for families to do. Can’t wait to go back!
