Allen County Public Library

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Contact Information
E-mail: [mailto:genealogy@acpl.info genealogy@acpl.info]

Website: http://www.acpl.lib.in.us

Blog: http://genealogycenter.wordpress.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fort-Wayne-IN/Genealogy-Center/189683797012

Address:


 * 900 Library Plaza
 * Fort Wayne, IN 46802

Telephone: 260-421-1200

Hours:


 * Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur: 9am-9pm; Friday, Saturday: 9am-6pm; Sunday*: 12NOON-5pm
 * For holiday schedule, click here.


 * * Closed Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day

Directions and public parking map:


 * Directions (Google map)
 * Parking map

Internet sites and databases:


 * Allen County Public Library Internet Site, locations, hours, events, newsletter, blog, ask, research, services.
 * ACPL Catalog Online by keywords, author, title, subject, series, magazines, or ISBN.
 * ACPL Genealogy Center, getting started, programs, county-state-international links, youth, research topics, databases, Periodical Source Index (PERSI), brochures, research or article request forms, pathfinders.

Collection Description
The Fred J. Reynolds Historical Genealogy Collection is the second-largest genealogy collection in the United States and the largest genealogy collection in a public library. Its holdings include more than 350,000 printed volumes and 513,000 items on microfilm and microfiche. Users in Fort Wayne also have access, for a small fee, to more than 2 million additional microfilms from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. ACPL creates the Periodical Source Index (PERSI), a subject index to genealogy and local history periodicals from all over the United States and Canada, including French Canadian journals. PERSI is created from the Center's premier collection of more than 5,100 current genealogy periodical subscriptions, as well as runs of numerous ceased serial titles.

Major online subscription databases at ACPL that patrons may use onsite include: Ancestry.com· African American Heritage· Footnote.com· HeritageQuestOnline.com· Historical Detroit Free Press· NewEnglandAncestors.org· Origins Network-British, Irish, and Scots· Paper of Record-Historical Newspapers· and WorldVitalRecords.com.

The Genealogy Center primarily is a North American collection, with a complementary focus on British Isles and some German materials. It also holds guidebooks, methodology works, heraldry titles and similar items of general focus for other countries. ACPL has more than 50,000 family histories, nearly 200,000 local histories, a significant number of North Carolina records on microfilm, and numerous important collections such as the Draper Manuscripts, the Drouin Collection, the Barber Collection, and many National Archives microfilm collections. The Genealogy Center also has significant resources for Native American and African American research. Specifically, the African American Gateway is a database of several thousand links to African American resources on the Internet, coupled with a bibliography of resources for African American research in the Genealogy Center's holdings. A large collection of early city directories on microfilm complements the hundreds of post-1960 print directories obtained by the Genealogy Center as a repository for the Polk Directory Company. For more details see Genealogy Center and the ACPL catalog.

Not surprisingly, because the Genealogy Center physically is located in Allen County, Indiana, the collection includes a vast amount of resources for Fort Wayne, Allen County and the surrounding area. The Center's website features a number of Allen County, Indiana Databases that are freely available to anyone with an Internet connection. Those with ancestors from the local area also will want to peruse the Allen County, Indiana Links posted on the Genealogy Center's homepage.

Collection Development

The staff bibliographer regularly monitors current journals, booklists and the Internet for newly published genealogy and local history books to add to the collection. In addition, the Genealogy Center welcomes donations of materials such as high school and college yearbooks, church histories and directories, self-published family histories or indexes to local records, or any other publication of interest to genealogists. A number of genealogists have named the Center as the repository for their genealogy book collections as a part of estate planning. The growing popularity and ease of digitization has made it possible for the Center to accept donations of originals or photocopies of many items that were not part of its collection development policy previously, such as photographs and individual documents. In particular, the Center welcomes submissions for Our Military Heritage and Family Bible Records. The Genealogy Center also welcomes the submission of computer databases of records pertaining to any geographic location to be made available to the public on its website.

One of the creative ways the Genealogy Center collection grows is through its Photocopy Exchange Program. Individuals submit a manuscript copy of a family or local history they have written and the Genealogy Center photocopies the document twice, placing one hardcover copy in the Center's collection and returning one hardcover copy and the original manuscript pages to the author

Tips for Your Visit

 * Do your "homework" before visiting the Genealogy Center. Gather basic information about your family - names, dates and places - from home sources and by interviewing relatives.
 * Make a research plan by deciding what specific information you would like to find during your visit.
 * Prepare for a genealogical trip to the ACPL by using the online ACPL catalog ahead of time.
 * Also consult the microtext catalog before you go. The Genealogy Center has an extensive microfilm and microfiche collection, some of which is not included in the main ACPL catalog.
 * It also helps to prepare by using the Periodical Source Index (PERSI) at HeritageQuestOnline available at many U.S. public libraries. The Genealogy Center creates PERSI and therefore has all of the periodical titles referenced in it. Some periodical call numbers are available in PERSI; others may be obtained by searching the library's catalog using the title of the journal.

Guides

 * ACPL, The Genealogy Center: A Tradition of Excellence (brochure).
 * Genealogy Center, Allen County Public Library, part 1 (You Tube online video, 9:17)
 * Genealogy Center, Allen County Public Library, part 2 (You Tube online video, 7:30)
 * Cavanaugh, Karen B. A Genealogist’s Guide to the Ft. Wayne, Indiana, Public Library. Owensboro, Kentucky: McDowell Pub., 1980. (FHL Book 977.274/F1 A3c)

Alternate Repositories
If you cannot visit or find a record at the Allen County Public Library, a similar record may be available at one of the following.

Overlapping Collections


 * ACPL branches of the Main Library
 * National Archives, Chicago Great Lakes Region federal censuses 1790–1930; selected military service indexes, pension indexes, passenger lists, and naturalizations. Free computers for Ancestry, Heritage Quest, or Footnote.

Similar Collections


 * Newberry Library a large Chicago repository with genealogies, local histories, censuses, military, land, indexes, vital records, court, and tax records mostly from the Mississippi Valley, eastern seaboard, Canada, &amp; British Isles.
 * St. Louis County Library, mostly Missouri, but includes St. Louis Genealogical, and National Genealogical Societys' collections, online databases, federal censuses, African American records, &amp; access to LDS microfilms.
 * Mid-Continent Public Library Midwest Genealogy Center, Independence, MO, national censuses/indexes, 80,000 family histories, 100,000 local histories, 565,000 microfilms, 7,000 maps, and extensive newspaper clippings.
 * Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Local History and Genealogy Reading Room is part of the world's largest library including 50,000 genealogies, 100,000 local histories, rich in collections of manuscripts, microfilms, maps, newspapers, photographs, and published material, strong in North American, British Isles, and German sources
 * New York City Public Library international genealogy, heraldry, personal and family names (in Roman alphabets), family papers, Dorot Jewish collection, maps, periodicals, American history at national, state, and local levels.
 * Family History Library, Salt Lake City, 450 computers, 3,400 databases, 3.1 million microforms, 4,500 periodicals, 310,000 books of worldwide family and local histories, civil, church, immigration, ethnic, military, Mormon records.

Neighboring Collections


 * Indiana State Library, 40,000 family histories, indexes, how-to books, cemeteries, periodicals, federal censuses, Indiana county records, passenger lists, and military pension information; emphasis east of the Mississippi.
 * Indiana State Archives, territorial-state records, old soldier homes, prisons, Wabash &amp; Erie Canal land records.
 * Indiana Historical Society, history, personal papers, business records, oral histories, photographs, postcards.
 * Indiana Genealogical Society, how-to articles, member-only databases, events, blog archive, research, projects.
 * United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, federal court records.
 * Allen County Courthouse, birth, marriage, death, and court records.
 * Allen County-Ft. Wayne Historical Society, museum, 23,000 artifacts, photographs, documents, digital images.
 * Indiana University Library, Bloomington, biography, images, indexes, newspapers, periodicals, U.S. government.
 * University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries, biography, periodicals, newspapers, oral history.