Most Overlooked Family History Resource - Periodicals

Family Tree Magazine, Internet Genealogy and Your Genealogy are just three of the family history
 related magazines that Medina County District Library subscribes to.

Most public libraries invest money and precious space to their magazine collections. And that holds true for genealogical collections too. 

However, to the dismay of family history librarians, the magazines are not used much by our members.

We get it. Finding time to read magazines is hard. Four magazines are sitting on my desk right now waiting for me to "have a spare moment" to read them. 

But if we make the time for them, we can get so much out of them!

How they can help our research

• Their articles cover research methods and sources to broaden our genealogy education
• They offer the opportunity to discover the history & people of a location
• They reveal what resources historical and genealogical societies have
• They provide a place to pose questions and get help tackling that brick wall

Genealogical publications can be classified into several categories

 Magazines/journals  

• General interest magazines - Like the ones pictured above feature many how to articles on general, ethnic and foreign research. Just in these issues items covered are:
• Scanning your photos & documents
• Italian Roots
• Pennsylvania Research Guide
• African American Research
• US Social Security & Delayed Birth certificates
• And much, much more!
• Regional- the magazines below cover regional topics, specifically, Ohio family history research, Ohio history, and New England ancestry. Articles include:
• Cases where DNA has upended people's identities
• Letters from an ancestor who had participated in the Women's Club movement
• An interview with author, Conrade C. Hinds about his book Lost Circuses of Ohio
• The restoration of the Warren G. Harding home and construction of his presidential library in Marion, Ohio
• "Women on the Ohio Canals", and
• "Ohio Civil War Veterans Buried in DeKalb County, Illinois"
• Scholarly - journals, like The Register,  present case studies of New England ancestor's using the most stringent research criteria. It is a great learning tool for resolving brick walls and conflicting data. This issue contains articles on:
• "Excommunication of Mayflower Passenger William White..."
• "Sorting Out Several Daniel Lanphear Men"
• "The Second Wife of Moses Gile of Hampstead, New Hampshire; Which Mary Clark?"

Ohio Genealogical Society Quarterly is the OGS' journal that comes with membership

in the Society. Echoes comes with membership in the Ohio Historical Connection. And

American Ancestors is part of membership to the New England Historic Genealogical 

Society (NEHGS). 

The Register is another publication
from NEHGS that is more scholarly.

Newsletters - are more casual publications than magazines or journals. They tend to have a limited audience, aren't printed on glossy paper, and don't have bindings. But don't underestimate them! They are published by:

• Historical/genealogical societies
• Libraries
• Counties/regional/state societies
• Surname/family groups
• Ethnic/nationality populations

Spencer Town Crier, Past Pursuits, The Medina County
Story, The Medina County Historical Society (formerly
Smart Talk) and the Chatham Historical Society Newsletter.

These newsletters are in the local history collection at the Virginia Wheeler Martin Family History & Learning Center at the Medina Library.

They inform about local happenings and recount historical events. Local genealogical society newsletters often have a section where you can post queries and get responses from local historians. Past Pursuits is the newsletter for the Special Collections Division of the Akron-Summit County Public Library.  They highlight their databases, list when new materials they've acquired and list any special events or classes at the Library.

PERSI - 

is the PERiodical Source Index created by the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They index genealogical and historical magazines and newsletters from around the world. Want to know if there are articles in Colorado publications about your ancestors? Run a search through PERSI. Once you find an article you want, you can get it directly from Allen County or use your local library's interlibrary loan service. (There may be a fee for this service.) PERSI is available on FindMyPast. The easiest way to access it is to type "findmypast persi" into your favorite search engine. 

Online magazines/journals - some magazines don't require a trip to your local library or bookstore to check out and read. They are available:                                                                        

• Through online personal subscriptions or memberships
• Through popular reading apps, such as Overdrive and Flipster which are available through your local library.

Wherever and however you find them, genealogy magazines, journals and newsletters are an invaluable resources that you cannot afford to skip!