The Allen County Public Library (ACPL) Genealogy Center is one of the premier genealogical research resources in the United States. If you’re ever in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, area, you may want to schedule a few days of research at the center. Nicole and I were there as part of the National Genealogical Society Conference and spent an afternoon exploring the center. In this post, I’ll share some of the great resources available there, along with tips for preparing for research.
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Experimenting with each search will bring the best results. It doesn’t hurt to try the surname search, especially if your surname is unusual. However, if it is common, you may have too many results. For example, the “Royston” search had only 22 results. The “Cox” search returned over 2,000 hits.
I decided to try the locality search for two of my counties – Chambers County, Alabama, and Izard County, Arkansas. I hoped I’d find historical information that could add context to my research on the Royston and Weatherford families.
In the Izard County Historian, I found a map of the Trail of Tears as it went through the area in 1838. This was precisely the time when my Weatherford ancestors, Clemsy and Henderson, lived in the county, and it adds to their story that they were likely affected by the thousands of Creeks and Cherokees passing through. 1…