Who Do You Think You Are? Start your family history search with Ancestry Library Edition
When starting out on a family history project, many of us have a secret (or perhaps not-so secret) hope that we'll find someone famous or royal in our family tree. In an episode of the most recent season of TLC's Who Do You Think You Are?, Cindy Crawford had this wish come true by finding out she was decended from Charlemagne! Yes, that Charlemagne.
Most family history researchers will not find such an illustrious ancestor. Yet, perhaps like Zooey Deschanel, you'll find an ancestor who will truly make you proud. Zooey was investigating her Quaker heritage and found great grandparen'ts who had a important station of the Underground Railroad on their property. When a riot between runaway slaves and slave owners from south of the Mason-Dixon Line broke out on their property, they risked their own safety to help the former slaves escape. Absolutely amazing!
If you are interested in finding out more about the people in your family tree, a great place to begin is by using Ancestry Library Edition at your local library branch. Ancestry Library Edition contains many of the resources available in the subscription version. It has resources such as census returns, vital records (birth, marriage and death), voters lists, passenger lists, church records, military records and much more.
To help you get started, Download Ancestry Library Edition guide to bring with you when you plan to visit your local branch. Please note that this resource is only available through the public access computers in library branches. It is not accessible from home.
Other great resources for family historians are the Local History & Genealogy blog created by library staff and the History & Genealogy programs offered in branches across the city in collaboration with local geneaological and historical societies.
2 thoughts on “Who Do You Think You Are? Start your family history search with Ancestry Library Edition”
I’m fortunate that my fathers cousin was really into genealogy 20 years ago, so I can’trace my ancestors back to England 200 years ago. But that doesn’t tell anything about their lives. I’m trying to verify a rumour that two brothers swapped wifes! Having access to the Globe and Star archives has also been interesting, too! One thing I’ve found useful is to set-up an account with Ancestry.ca and whenever they give me a hint, instead of paying $5 for it, I review the hint through the Library Edition and save the hint as a PDF or JPG file.
Thanks for the tip! Glad to hear that you have found Ancestry Library Edition useful. The Globe and Star Pages of the Past are great resources for any kind of historical research.