Allen County Public Library

Here are some of my Allen County Public Library finds from my quick trip there this month:

• Family Group Sheets found listing the city of Norwich, VT as the birth town of an ancestor.  While this isn’t anything in concrete, it’s a clue that might help with the lovely surname of SMITH.
• Marriage notice of an ancestor’s brother that lists the maiden name of the mother
• Cemetery listings that list the birth date of an ancestor.
• Cemetery listings showing an ancestor as “ILLINOIS PIONEER”
•  3^rd great grandfather noted in list of persons attending the reunion of his Civil War unit in 1887 (nothing too new, but I just found it interesting.  And from studying his unit, it was nice for ME to have a reunion with the others listed!)
• Estate notices of an ancestor (need to order)
• Family group sheets of an entire family going back to the 1600s in America (need to research)
• Photos of brothers and sisters of my 2^nd great grandmother
• Notices from a naturalization listing that may (or may not) be my ancestors (need to research)
• Local history book that says how the town sent off my 3rd great grandfather's Civil War unit
• And many, many more

If you haven’t been to the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I highly recommend it.  Sadly, we only had a few hours there, but we made the most of it.  There are rolling carts that you take with you to the shelves and fill.  You then bring them back to large study tables to go through.  I took pictures of the covers, title pages, copyright pages and the interesting pages with my iPad as I found things. 

Sadly, it wasn’t until halfway through the day that I realized that I should have jotted down the books that I *DIDN’T* find things in.  I’m sure that I’ll be looking through those same books again one day, since I didn’t do this.  (Slapping forehead).  When you are finished with the books, you put them on rolling wooden carts to be shelved.  We filled about five carts between two of us…

A friend from my local genealogical society told me that he spends a week at a time there.  Before going, I was baffled at how you could spend a whole week at a library. 

Now I know.