Find Your Past at the
Library Today
The Martinsburg Berkeley County Public Library has several
tools for assisting you in researching your family history. These include
Ancestry.com, Biography and Genealogy Master Index, Genealogy Bank, Heritage
Quest and others. Some can be used from home by getting a password from the
library. Others must be accessed from the library computers. In this BLOG I
will provide an introduction to Ancestry.com.
Access to Ancestry is available on computers in the main and
branch libraries only. When you sign up to use one of the library's computers,
ask the librarian to sign you in to Ancestry.
If this is your first time using Ancestry and you want to be
able to save the results of your research in the Ancestry database then you
need to create a new family tree. To do this, select Start a New Tree from the
Family Trees menu on the menu bar at the top of the page. When you start a tree
you will be asked to enter information about yourself, your parents and your
grandparents. As you enter information about your ancestors you will begin
seeing leaf symbols appear. If you click on a leaf it will take you to records
such as birth, marriage, death, census and others that might provide more
information about your ancestor.
If you don't want your family information available on a
public computer, you can still use the library tools to do your research. In
Ancestry you can use the Search menu to search for records for a particular
person. The search form will allow you to enter things like the person's name,
birth date, marriage date, names of other family members etc. Enter as much or as little information as you
wish. Entering more information will reduce the number of results but may cause
you to miss some if what you enter doesn't exactly match what is in the record.
As you find records of interest you can print copies or if you bring a flash
drive to the library, you can save them there.
If you have questions please ask a library staff member.
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