Allen County Public Library

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Contact Information
E-mail: [mailto:ask@acpl.info ask@acpl.info]

Website: http://www.acpl.lib.in.us

Address:


 * 900 Library Plaza
 * Fort Wayne, IN 46802

Telephone: 260-421-1200

Hours:


 * Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur: 9am-9pm; Friday, Saturday: 9am-6pm; Sunday*: 12NOON-5pm
 * For holiday schedule, click here.


 * * Closed Sundays from Memorial Day to Labor Day

Directions and public parking map:


 * Directions (Google map)
 * Parking map

Internet sites and databases:


 * Allen County Public Library Internet Site, locations, hours, events, newsletter, blog, ask, research, services.
 * ACPL Catalog Online by keywords, author, title, subject, series, magazines, or ISBN.
 * ACPL Genealogy Center, getting started, programs, county-state-international links, youth, research topics, databases, Periodical Source Index (PERSI), publications, brochures, research or article request forms, and pathfinders.

Collection Description
The Fred J. Reynolds Historical Genealogy Collection is the second-largest genealogy collection in the United States with more than 350,000 printed volumes and 513,000 items on microform. Users in Fort Wayne also have access, for a small fee, to over 2 million additional microfilms from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. ACPL creates the Periodical Source Index (PERSI), the world's largest genealogy magazine subject index. It is based on their premier collection of French-Canadian and English-language genealogical and local history periodicals (5,100 current subscriptions).

Major online databases at the ACPL include: Ancestry.com· African American Heritage· Footnote.com· HeritageQuestOnline.com· Historical Detroit Free Press· NewEnglandAncestors.org· Origins Network-British, Irish, and Scots· Paper of Record-Historical Newspapers· and WorldVitalRecords.com.

ACPL has over 50,000 family histories, all federal, and many state and territorial censuses, city directories, passenger lists, military records, nearly 200,000 local histories, the Boston Transcript, colonial newspapers of VA, MD, and PA, native American, African American, Canadian, British, and German collections. For more details see Genealogy Center and the ACPL catalog.

Tips

 * Prepare for a genealogical trip to the ACPL by using the online ACPL catalog ahead of time.
 * Also consult the microtext catalog before you go. The Genealogy Center has an extensive microfilm and microfiche collection, much of which is not included in the main ACPL catalog.
 * It also helps to prepare by using the Periodical Source Index (PERSI) at HeritageQuestOnline available at many U.S. public libraries.

Guides

 * ACPL, The Genealogy Center: A Tradition of Excellence (brochure).
 * Genealogy Center, Allen County Public Library, part 1 (You Tube online video, 9:17)
 * Genealogy Center, Allen County Public Library, part 2 (You Tube online video, 7:30)
 * Cavanaugh, Karen B. A Genealogist’s Guide to the Ft. Wayne, Indiana, Public Library. Owensboro, Kentucky: McDowell Pub., 1980. (FHL Book 977.274/F1 A3c)

Alternate Repositories
If you cannot visit or find a record at the Allen County Public Library, a similar record may be available at one of the following.

Overlapping Collections


 * ACPL branches of the Main Library
 * National Archives, Chicago Great Lakes Region federal censuses 1790–1930; selected military service indexes, pension indexes, passenger lists, and naturalizations. Free computers for Ancestry, Heritage Quest, or Footnote.

Similar Collections


 * Newberry Library a large Chicago repository with genealogies, local histories, censuses, military, land, indexes, vital records, court, and tax records mostly from the Mississippi Valley, eastern seaboard, Canada, &amp; British Isles.
 * St. Louis County Library, mostly Missouri, but includes St. Louis Genealogical, and National Genealogical Societys' collections, online databases, federal censuses, African American records, &amp; access to LDS microfilms.
 * Mid-Continent Public Library Midwest Genealogy Center, Independence, MO, national censuses/indexes, 80,000 family histories, 100,000 local histories, 565,000 microfilms, 7,000 maps, and extensive newspaper clippings.
 * Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Local History and Genealogy Reading Room is part of the world's largest library including 50,000 genealogies, 100,000 local histories, rich in collections of manuscripts, microfilms, maps, newspapers, photographs, and published material, strong in North American, British Isles, and German sources
 * New York City Public Library international genealogy, heraldry, personal and family names (in Roman alphabets), family papers, Dorot Jewish collection, maps, periodicals, American history at national, state, and local levels.
 * Family History Library, Salt Lake City, 450 computers, 3,400 databases, 3.1 million microforms, 4,500 periodicals, 310,000 books of worldwide family and local histories, civil, church, immigration, ethnic, military, Mormon records.

Neighboring Collections


 * Indiana State Library, 40,000 family histories, indexes, how-to books, cemeteries, periodicals, federal censuses, Indiana county records, passenger lists, and military pension information; emphasis east of the Mississippi.
 * Indiana State Archives, territorial-state records, old soldier homes, prisons, Wabash &amp; Erie Canal land records.
 * Indiana Historical Society, history, personal papers, business records, oral histories, photographs, postcards.
 * Indiana Genealogical Society, how-to articles, member-only databases, events, blog archive, research, projects.
 * United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, federal court records.
 * Allen County Courthouse, birth, marriage, death, and court records.
 * Allen County-Ft. Wayne Historical Society, museum, 23,000 artifacts, photographs, documents, digital images.
 * Indiana University Library, Bloomington, biography, images, indexes, newspapers, periodicals, U.S. government.
 * University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries, biography, periodicals, newspapers, oral history.