To help with your family history research, the Indiana State Library has digitized many items from our collections to make them more widely available. Our digital collections contain a variety of records and documents that can provide more details about your family and the world in which they lived.
Family Bible records
Historically, it was very common for families to record genealogical information in the family Bible. Some Bibles were even published with dedicated pages for birth, marriage and death details. These records often pre-date civil vital records, providing researchers with information that is not available anywhere else.
Family Bibles are often a treasured family heirloom. However, we have acquired copies of Bible records over the years and have digitized many of these records so that they are available to researchers everywhere.
These Bible records from the Genealogy Division document family history from the 1840s to the 1920s.
These Bible records from the Genealogy Division document family history from the 1840s to the 1920s
Maps
Maps are incredibly useful to genealogists. They present information in a different format than the written word, providing a different perspective on the people and places being researched. They can help researchers visualize what a place looked like in the past.
Looking at historic maps shows how a place looked at a specific point in time. This can illustrate how geography affected people’s lives, including where natural features such as rivers and lakes were located, or where a person lived in proximity to stores, places of worship and friends and relatives.
Maps can also illustrate boundary changes and land ownership, which can help you find where people lived and where places were located that may no longer exist today.
This segment of a plat map shows landowners in Washington Township, Elkhart County, in 1892.
Photographs
Family photographs cover a wide variety of subjects, from formal posed portraits to casual vacation snapshots. These images show not only what people looked like, but also how they dressed, where they lived and the sights they would have seen during their life.
Because of this, family photographs are wonderful research tools, whether they depict your family or people from a similar time period or geographic area. Especially once personal cameras became widespread, photographs show so much of ordinary life that was often not captured in other media.
Family photographs like these show reunions, babies, family businesses and many other aspects of peoples’ everyday lives.
Family photographs like these show reunions, babies, family businesses and many other aspects of peoples’ everyday lives.
Family photographs like these show reunions, babies, family businesses and many other aspects of peoples’ everyday lives.
Documents
Personal documents like letters and cards also show how people lived at a given point in time. Since letters were often used to connect family members living far apart from each other, they contain many details about the family and updates on local news and events. Letters may also give perspective to major historical events. In addition to letters, greeting cards are a fun way to experience the art and culture of the past just like the people who lived then did.
Documents like professional memberships, birth records and letters show various aspects of life in the past.
Documents like professional memberships, birth records and letters show various aspects of life in the past.
Documents like professional memberships, birth records and letters show various aspects of life in the past.
Official documents, such as government publications and vital records, provide information on individuals and in the aggregate that help document peoples’ lives and the world in which they lived. These documents may include birth and death information, details on historical events both big and small and local information that is not readily available elsewhere.
This blog post is by Jamie Dunn, Genealogy Division supervisor.