Currently, Ancestry Library Edition can be accessed from the comfort of your own home. This remote access is available through December 31, 2021. Beginning January 1st, library users will need to access this database from inside any of our library locations. Access to HeritageQuest Online, powered by Ancestry, will remain available remotely.
Discover your family's history through birth, marriage, and death records, city directories, census records, immigration records, and more. The library edition does lack some of the personalization tools, such as creating and linking family trees.
Need help knowing where to begin? Check out the Learning Center for research aids including tips on locating a relative, guides for searching, and instructions on how to read records.
View sample searches to understand the search options that are available.
How to Search Ancestry
- From any page on Ancestry, click the Search tab and select All Collections. To search a specific type of record, select that record type instead.
- To search with extra facts, click the Show more options link. To limit your search results to an exact name or date, select exact under a field. It's usually best to start with a broad search and only select Exact if you get too many results.
- Enter information and click Search.
Search tips
- Narrow your search by location or date. From your list of search results, look for the Filter by menu in the panel on the left side of the page. In the Filter by menu, under Record Location or Record Date, click a location or date to filter your results.
- Allow for spelling mistakes. Sometimes names are spelled incorrectly on censuses, and sometimes handwriting can be difficult to read.
- Try searching with both more and less information. Add and remove different facts in the search form (since different types of records have different combinations of data).
Proquest does offer a User Guide for Ancestry Library Edition for more information.
Access to this resource outside the Library District's buildings has been temporarily expanded to library cardholders, courtesy of ProQuest and its partner Ancestry.