The Crestview Public Library offers a number of ways to help you with your family history and genealogy research.
Free one-hour workshop classes, followed by one-on-one help sessions, are offered monthly. The next classes are 5:30 p.m. Nov. 14 and Dec. 12 here in the library meeting room. For questions, to reserve a one-on-one spot, or make an appointment, call 849-9468.
The library also subscribes to HeritageQuest Online, which patrons may access free with their library card number. The newly updated site can be used to:
•Search census records. Find ancestors in the complete set of U.S. Federal Census images from 1790-1940, including name indexes for many years.
•Search books. Find information on people and places described in over 28,000 family and local histories.
•Search Revolutionary War items. Search selected records from the Revolutionary War Era Pension & Bounty-land Warrant Application Files.
•Search Freedman’s Bank records: Search for individuals in the Freedman's Bank (1865-1874), which was founded to serve African Americans.
To get started with family research, try these tips:
•List what you already know — start an ancestral chart
•Interview relatives — make family group sheets
•Get death records — death certificates, obituaries etc.
•Follow the death-record clues — time and place of death lead to birth, marriage and other records
•Search census records — learn where ancestors lived.
•Search local sources — newspapers, local histories, property (land) maps, court and church records, tax lists and wills.
•Don’t forget family histories, immigration records, ship passenger lists and military records.
The Baker Block Museum, located at the corner of Highway 189 and State Road 4, is a great source for local history and genealogy research, especially if you have roots in this Northwest Florida Panhandle area.
This living history museum is open 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and the third Saturdays. Don’t miss their annual Heritage Festival held the first Saturday of November. For more information call 537-5714 or email bakermuseum@aol.com.
The Genealogical Society of Okaloosa County is another excellent source for research and searching support. Regular meetings of the GSOC are usually held at the Heritage Museum of Northwest Florida in Valparaiso at 10 a.m. on the second Saturday of each month. There is no admission charge, and all are welcome.
An excellent monthly newsletter is usually published on or before the first Friday of each month; copies may be viewed at the library in the local history section of the reference area. For more information you may email the GSOC, gsocokaloosa@yahoo.com.
Sandra Dreaden is the Crestview Public Library's reference librarian.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Resources to research your family tree