Shiny, new place to do research

The Midwest will be home to the largest public genealogy facility in America when the $8 million, 50,000 square-foot Midwest Genealogy Center marks its grand opening on June 21 in Independence, Missouri.

The facility will cover eight acres and will be open six days a week, closing on Sundays and holidays. Best of all, it’s free. That includes scheduled appointments with experts.

The center will feature extensive microfilm and microfiche holdings covering a wide range of topics. Included will be a whopping 60,000 titles of family genealogies as well as Civil War histories, Native American records, biographical archives and Black family history records.

State of the art work areas, lockers, limited food services and a break area will make for a comfortable setting to do extensive family research. The parking area even includes spaces can accommodate RVs.

Classes will range from basic internet research to problems with maps or census records. Appointments will be available with experts in several foreign languages as well.

To learn more about this research gem, check out this article in Kansas City infoZine, which provided much of the detail in this post. You can also check out the library’s site.

Larry Lehmer is a personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site or send him an e-mail.

Flickr photo courtesy of knit_purr.