LAPL Blog
genealogy
Imagine discovering that the man who raised you is not your biological father. That your mother’s race differs from how she presented herself. That the person you are attracted to is your sibling. That you are the descendant of a renowned individual. A monstrous one.
One of the good things to come out of our COVID year was the explosive popularity of online programming. Genealogy Garage—the library's monthly genealogy session—has taken the plunge, too, and we now have recordings of our presentations for you to watch whenever you want!
The notion of having one’s own savings account is commonplace to us modern folk. But for former slaves—many of whom had never even seen money—it was an alien concept. And, in a country that runs on capitalism, getting the hang of money management was (and is) essential to survival.
I recently completed an online heraldry class conducted by the University of Strathclyde, and I learned a great deal that will be helpful to me as a genealogy librarian.
Insurance companies have long provided policies to cover losses of property but, before the end of the Civil War, this also included pay-outs for injury and death of the formerly enslaved.
City Directories are wolves in sheep’s clothing. You think you’re cracking open a boring ole phone book but, when you look closer, you'll find loads of clandestine information that phone books are missing. Sorted alphabetically by last name, these (often-) annual tomes feature not just resident
To the bane of many genealogists, the eleventh census of the United States was heavily damaged by a fire at the Commerce Department in 1921. Less than one percent of it survived, which means we have census data (e.g.
My grandmother was born June Eileen Lavonne Nystrom and her husband called her Patty. I know this because my mom told me, and my mom knows this because her mom told her.
![[photo of great grandmother]](https://www.lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/blog_latest_list_120x90/public/blogs/2020-04/lucy.jpg?itok=pOE2FA9F "Is this woman related to the King of Sweden?")
Am I related to anyone famous?
What is my ethnic background?
How far back can I go? 1800s? 1600s? Adam and Eve?!