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October is Family History Month and the Robbins Library has plenty of resources that can help you in your research. You can also go to our Local History Page and view the Researching your Family section, or you can take one of our Genealogy Brochures in person or online here. Read on for more information on our resources you can use to start your family history journey.
Ancestry Library
LIBRARY USE ONLY Thousands of family history databases, including vital records, census records, ship passenger lists, military records and lots more! Users cannot create family trees through the library edition version of Ancestry, but records you find can be emailed to yourself or saved for later to include on your family tree. Sections are divided by Search Census, Search Vitals, Search Military, and Search Immigration on the page. View our tutorial on Niche Academy to learn how to search Ancestry Library edition.
Heritage Quest
Cannot get to the library? HeritageQuest offers several sources that Ancestry Library Edition has that you can access with your Minuteman Library card. Learn how to search HeritageQuest.
American Ancestors
IN LIBRARY USE ONLY
Historical Arlington Newspapers
Covering Arlington’s newspapers from 1871-2005, this database is good for family research for finding obituaries, birth announcements, wedding announcements, and more for your relatives in the town of Arlington. View this video for more information on how to search and use the database. In addition, if you are doing family research out of Arlington, Advantage Archives who hosts the database has a directory of other newspapers they have digitized throughout the United States.
Internet Archive
Several of our collections have been digitized through Digital Commonwealth and placed on the Internet Archive. Some collections that can help in your genealogical research include:
Arlington High School Yearbooks 1927 – 2020. Some years missing. Arlington High School Yearbooks are valuable in determining whether an ancestor you are researching graduated high school and give a snapshot of what their early life was like.
Town Street Directories, 1869 – 1940. Useful for filling in where ancestors lived in between ten year periods the Census was taken.
True List of Persons, 1921 – present. The listing of all people who were 17 years or older in Arlington, another way of establishing residency of an ancestor during a year.
Town Annual Reports, 1842 – present. While Town Reports mostly recap the town government and departments for a given year, earlier reports in the mid 19th century give a tax list of people who paid taxes that can be useful for establishing residency for ancestors.
To learn more about how to search these Internet Archive resources, view our YouTube playlist.
Hopefully these resources can help break some genealogical brick walls. For more assistance, contact our Local History Librarian at arlhist@minlib.net.