Ghosts, haunts, black cats and spooky skeletons – what are these things, really, but a fear of the unknown made manifest in our fevered collective imagination? With Ancestry, easily accessed through any computer in the Burlington County Library System, you can discover your history, illuminate the past and – if you wish – dispel the lingering ghosts of family history undiscovered. Or embrace the shivers and find stories that ask more questions than they answer! Why was great-great Aunt Amanda the only child out of five to receive a mere $1 inheritance? How did that train engineer not see great-great grandfather on those railroad tracks at 3 am?
Ancestry offers a number of different ways to search for family records – making that first step on the path of family history less scary with their easy general search fields, as well as allowing the more confident researcher to focus their search to a specific collection like census records, military records, immigration records, city directories and more. Ancestry also offers a robust learning center and a useful support section complete with helpful tips to kickstart your research into gear.
But if you’re interested in the more macabre (and perhaps less personally relevant) records, you can browse through obscure-but-fascinating subjects such as death warrants from Edinburgh, from 1759-1878, or records from the Arkansas US State Licensing for Embalmers, Funeral Directors, and Midwives, 1935-1970. Browse the U.S. Cemetery Registers from Utah, from 1855-2012 or read through Headstone Inscriptions from Ballymena, Antrim, 1671-1996 as well as Burial Monument Inscriptions from Scotland, starting in 1507.
So, if you want to make friends with the skeletons in your family closet, Ancestry is a great place to start. And just a reminder that if you’d like to explore everything Ancestry has to offer, it must be accessed with your library card on-site at any library branch in the Burlington County Library System.
