Photos of Researching Your Roots

Special Collections Librarian, Elizabeth Call reports:

On a chilly Saturday afternoon a great group of people gathered into the Brooklyn Historical Society’s Othmer Library for the Researching Your Roots workshop led by renowned genealogist Wilhelmena Kelly.  

Attendees were all at varying points with their research, and the workshop had something to offer everyone. Most spent the 3 hours hurriedly scribbling notes—no doubt mapping out their next plan of action for their own genealogical research!

Top 4 Online Genealogical Resources:

• Ancestry - The “primary source” for genealogical research. This is a for fee database that allows subscribers to search and view important records such as the U.S. Census, voter registrations, birth, marriage and death records, immigration records, obituaries and so much more.
• FamilySearch – This is a free database that allows users to search and view important records such as state censuses, probated wills, naturalization records, war records, and more.
• DAR Descendants Database - This is a freely searchable database containing an index of the names found on the lineage page of DAR applications and supplementals.
• Google - A great way to find genealogical-rich resources like town histories, printed genealogies, etc. which are no longer copyrighted and are being digitized and made freely accessible through interfaces such as Google Books and the Internet Archive. 

Thank you to our wonderful workshop leader Wilhelmena Kelly!

All photos by Willie Davis for Brooklyn Historical Society, 2013