Who Are You? Discover Your Ancestry at Lakewood Public Library

My family came from Italy on my father’s side and Germany on my mother’s. At least I believed this for a long time.

That is until a maternal cousin, a language professor, decided to undertake a genealogical investigation to trace his ancestry. The results revealed half of my genetic DNA is actually from the Netherlands, not Deutschland at all. I suddenly became Dutch overnight.

Thanks to you don’t need an expert researcher to discover who you really are.

Ancestry.com Library Edition, part of the largest online family history resource online, is now available at the Library.

It provides unprecedented access to family history via documents that record the lineage of individuals from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and beyond.

From a Library computer you can use this powerful tool to navigate through your past, and we are also offering a few courses that can help guide you on the way.

Ancestry Library Edition opens up a world of census data records, voter lists, birth, marriage and death certificates, and even passenger manifests, which list the names of the brave souls who left the Old World for an unknown new one.

Ancestry.com Library Edition is free to use every day at the Library. We will also offer two courses with Genealogist Deborah Abbott who will show you how to unlock the secrets held by census reports, military records, birth certificates and obituaries in a hands-on workshop at 7 p.m. on March 22 and May 17 in the Main Library Technology Center Learning Lab.

Space for these classes is limited, and you must register by calling (216) 226-8275 x. 127. To learn more about the research databases available at Lakewood Public Library visit the website.