Wichita Public Library Genealogy Center

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Contact Information
E-mail: [mailto:reference@wichita.lib.ks.us reference@wichita.lib.ks.us]

Address:


 * 223 South Main St.
 * Wichita, KS 67202

Telephone 316.261.8509 ; Fax 316-262-4540

Hours:


 * Monday - Thursday 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m
 * Friday - Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m
 * Sunday 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The WPL is closed summer Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day.


 * Holidays: Use the events calendar to find holiday closings.

Directions, map, parking, and public transportation:


 * Driving directions:  From US 400 / US 54 / Kellogg Avenue take the Central Business District exit. Turn north onto South Main Street. WPL is located on the left next to Century II Convention Center.
 * Google map:  Wichita Public Library
 * Parking:  No entrance fee, but nearby parking lots are metered. The short-term Library Parking Lot on the south side of the library is 25 cents for one hour maximum. The larger Public Parking Lot further south is 25 cents for two hours with ten hours maximum.
 * Public transportation:  all Wichita Transit bus routes return to the Downtown Transit Center  (four blocks east of the WPL). From the Downtown Transit Center, head south on Topeka Street or Emporia Ave to English (next street) and then walk west 3-4 blocks on English St to the Wichita Public Library. Bus routes 1, 7, 8, and 12 each stop a few blocks even closer to the Library.

Internet sites and databases:


 * Wichita Public Library books, events, services, research tools, kids, locations, and ask a librarian.
 * Local History and Genealogy events, local history resources, and genealogy resources.
 * WPL Online Catalog. Search by keyword, title, author, subject, or ISBN/ISSN. Also available in WorldCat.
 * WPL Research Tools WPL genealogy databases.
 * Wichita Photo Archives a selection of the Wulfmeyer Genealogy Center local photographs.
 * The Wichita Genealogical Society is a support group of the WPL Wulfmeyer Genealogy Center.

Collection Description
The Kansas and Local History collection has many genealogies. Their emphasis is mostly books, periodicals, and special publications for southeast Kansas, and corners of Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

The Wulfmeyer Genealogy Center contains over 25,000 genealogy books and magazines covering Kansas, the Great Plains, the Midwest, the South, and the American colonies. There is an emphasis on states that have had a heavy emigration to Kansas, especially New England and Midwestern states. We also have a large Native American collection, mainly covering the Great Plains tribes, and a large military collection with over 1,600 volumes on the Civil War. Other major collections include: state and federal censuses, vital records indexes, probate records, immigration lists, land records, tax lists, cemetery records, church records, town histories, ethnic histories, Dawes Commission Enrollment Records, Draper Manuscript Collection, ', ', and the Barbour Collection. Over 15,000 rolls of microfilm cover the city's major newspapers, the Wichita Eagle and the Wichita Beacon.

Tip
Search the collections on the Wichita Public Library Online Catalog before visiting.

Alternate Repositories
If you cannot visit or find a source at the , a similar source may be available at one of the following.

Overlapping Collections


 * Midwest Historical &amp; Genealogical Society, Wichita
 * Derby Kansas Family History Center

Similar Collections


 * Kansas Genealogical Society, Dodge City
 * Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka
 * Iola Public Library
 * Johnson County Public Library, Overland Park
 * Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library offers Ancestry.com, America's Obituaries, HeritageQuest Online, and the Topeka Room with local interest materials

Neighboring Collections


 * Wichita State University Library, Department of Special Collections, Wichita