AJC Week 19: At the Library

  

 While I have been keeping up with the 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks project facilitated by genealogist (and former librarian) Amy Johnson Crow, I haven't been writing each week or publishing each essay.  Some weeks I don't have anything to say about the assigned topic or more likely I don't have the time to write more than a paragraph or two. And while I would love to be a prolific blogger and genealogy writer, not is not the time. I am doing what I can and that is enough.  

So this week's topic is at the library. This is my love letter to libraries.  

I wouldn't be a genealogist or a family historian (and a librarian) without libraries. In particular, without the New City Library. I was already in library school when I discovered the Rockland Room, the name for the local history room at New City Library. I was a loyal user of my home town library and really wasn't looking for a new home, but then I discovered the Rockland Room.  

I thought I had a clue about my family's origins. I knew there was this thing about tracing your family tree and I knew I would some day do it but it was visiting the Rockland Room that told me the time is now. This was my call to action. 

There were books about my hometown, my dad's and my mom's. There were books about topics I wanted to learn more about, the lost towns of Harriman Park, the brickyards of Haverstraw. Books about methodologies and immigration and the Budke Collection, records of early Rockland County. There were books compiled by the Genealogical Society of Rockland County! There were funeral home records that lead me to so many connections and missing pieces. 

I wanted to get locked in and read and research all night. Once I started researching, I wanted to learn more and I was spending nearly all of my free time in the Rockland Room.  

The Genealogy Society met at the library and offered programs.I learned about Ancestry online and Familysearch and Cyndi's List. I learned so much from meeting with like minded people whose ancestors shared time and place with mine.  The programs provided the education a baby genealogist needed and one I craved. We had Megan Smolenyak talk about DNA in 2002! We had Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, Jim Warren, Beth Potter, Harold Holzer, Leslie Corn and Roger Joslyn and many other great speakers.  

Through these classes I learned about NY G & B and all they had to offer, and was able to attend my very first genealogy conference at the beautiful Old Paramus Reformed Church. It was a beautiful setting to learn and grow and I remember that day still. It's not lost on my that the first genealogy conference I ever attended was in a church. It was a spiritual experience for me.

 It's amazing to me to look back and see how much I have learned, the skills I have gained and the information gleaned since that first day I browsed in the Rockland Room. 

I have been lucky to learn about and even visit other libraries in the Hudson Valley and beyond. In each one I have been able to build on my knowledge and grow my research and my skills at researching. Now a days, more than 20 years later there are photo collections, newspaper archives and more.

Plan a visit to your local library and see what treasures you can uncover for your own family.