Mawby: Research your genealogy at the library

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For many years, genealogy was considered the hobby of retired people who had time to travel to courthouses or specialized libraries.

There they would wade through stacks of dusty record books and scroll through microfilm reels.

Changing technology has changed genealogy research in a big way. If you have seen the popular NBC series “Who Do You Think You Are?” you know a lot of the research is now done online.

So what if you are interested in researching your family tree but can’t afford to subscribe to an expensive genealogy service?

Get out your library card! The Capital Area District Library has a number of free resources to help you get started.

Begin at cadl.org and click on Research Tools in the left-side menu. From the list of Databases that appears, click on Genealogy. Here you will find several broad categories. The first is Obituaries and Vital Records, which explains how to find obituaries, death dates and more.

Find a Date of Death offers a number of links, including one of my favorites, Find a Grave. It lists a number of ways to find the burial place of a relative, thanks to volunteers all over the country who are recording cemetery inscriptions and even photographing individual headstones.

Another category on our Genealogy site is Databases. Access to these is free to CADL cardholders. One is Heritage Quest, which can be accessed from any computer and used to search census records, Revolutionary War pension records and more.

We also subscribe to the library edition of Ancestry.com, which can be accessed inside any of our 13 branches.

Need more help? Another resource on our Genealogy site is a link called Library Events, where you’ll see a list of free genealogy classes offered at CADL branches. And clicking on the link called Items in our Collection currently brings up 222 titles.

Something to be aware of when you are checking out items is a recent change in our overdue fines policy.

Prompted by the continued heavy use of our collection, CADL will begin charging fines on all overdue items that are checked out on or after Monday, April 2.

We are also reducing the number of days items will be held for patron pickup, from eight days to five.

Both of these changes will help move items through our system more quickly, allowing more people to borrow and enjoy them.

Please visit cadl.org/usersguide or ask a staff member for a complete list of these changes.

The Webberville Library, a Capital Area District Library, is located at 115 S. Main Street in Webberville. For more information about our hours, programs or services, call (517) 521-3643 or visit cadl.org. Find a complete list of library events at cadl.org/events.

Peg Mawby is the head librarian at Webberville Library.