Genealogy and Local History

Access Newspaper Archive is the world’s largest online newspaper archive. Featuring billions of articles from historical newspapers around the U.S. and the world, NewspaperARCHIVE makes exploring history and genealogy easy and fun. Discover fascinating news in archived newspapers hundreds of years old – including obituaries, birth announcements, sports articles, comics, and more – to fill in the life stories you are interested in. And share those stories with others through our community at OurNewspaperARCHIVE. All of the historical newspapers are full-page and fully searchable!

American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society offers a documentary history of the Colonial Americans in the twentieth century, presenting North American thought, culture, and society through a variety of perspectives. Each periodical offers a cross-section of the developing United States.

Explore and stay informed on local and national topics, people and events from news sources spanning the U.S.

Find birth, death, and census records.

Only accessible inside the library

Find your family in the world’s largest shared family tree. We have over a billion unique profiles in our tree, and growing. See what others have contributed about your ancestors.

 Findmypast helps its members explore their lives reframed. With family records you won't find anywhere else, easy-to-use tools and features and a thriving community of like-minded individuals, the only question is where will your past take you?

Fold3 provides convenient access to military records, including the stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served.

Quickly find your ancestors in over 300 years of historical newspapers, books, pamphlets and government reports. Search over 1,000 newspapers; the American State Papers; US Congressional Serial Set and more. Find obituaries, birth & marriage notices; pension records etc. Read every article on every page of the newspaper.

HeritageQuest Online is a comprehensive treasury of American genealogical sources—rich in unique primary sources, local and family histories, convenient research guides, interactive census maps, and more.

A collection of History eBooks

Indexes obtained from the Kentucky Vital Statistics office in Frankfort, Kentucky and converted and combined into one index.  This index will be updated as data is obtained from the State Office.

Explore Lexington history through local news, events and people with Lexington Herald Leader Collection. Search current and archived issues with full-color newspaper pages, full-text articles and content only published online. Also available remotely 24/7 on any device.

The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps are a valuable resource for genealogists, historians, urban planners, teachers or anyone with a personal connection to a community, street or building.  The maps depict more than 12,000 American towns and cities.  They show the size, shape and construction materials of dwellings, commercial buildings, factories and other structures.  They indicate both the names and width of streets, and show property boundaries and how individual buildings were used.  House and block numbers are identified.  They also show the location of water mains, fire alarm boxes and fire hydrants.

Gale In Context: U.S. History is an engaging online experience for those seeking contextual information on hundreds of the most significant people, events and topics in U.S. History. U.S. History merges Gale's authoritative reference content with full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, images, videos, audio files and links to vetted websites organized into a user-friendly portal experience.