Genealogy & History

  • Ancestry.com (accessible only from PCLC libraries): With more than 10 billion historical records, ancestry.com has been the worlds largest online resource for family history for the last 20 years, and contains handwritten historical documents, information from national, state, and local government archives,historical societies, religious institutions, and private collections. Members have created more than 38 million family trees and uploaded over 136 million photos, documents. and written stories to the database.
  • Heritage Quest: HeritageQuest Online is a comprehensive treasury of American genealogical sources rich in unique primary sources, local and family histories, and finding aids.
  • Polk County Historical and Genealogical Library: Resourceful provided by the Polk County Historical and Genealogical Library.
  • Salem History: Milestone documents and information in American and world history. Available titles include:
  • Sources in U.S. History Online: The Civil War December, 2011: Sources in U.S. History Online is a series of archival digital collections intended for public library patrons as well as high school, community college, and university students. The Civil War digital collection contains nearly 500 significant documents of the time--personal narratives, monographs, regimental histories, collected essays, sermons, songs, legal tracts, and political speeches--enabling students, faculty and patrons to study one of the key events in American history.
  • U.S. History Collection: As any historian will state, the study of history is as much about the present as the past: to that end, this collection provides well-rounded coverage of both the current thinking and events in US History, as well as scholarly work being established in the field. This compilation of journals provides robust and balanced coverage of this field, useful both to the novice historian as well as to the advanced academic researcher.
  • World History Collection: As any historian will state, the study of history is as much about the present as the past: to that end, this collection provides well-rounded coverage of both the current thinking and events in World History, as well as scholarly work being established in the field. This compilation of journals provides robust and balanced coverage of this field, useful both to the novice historian as well as to the advanced academic researcher.