Duluth and Superior Libraries to host free Genealogy events

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Digging into family history is a popular thing for many of us who are curious about our genealogy and often we’ll find out something new and interesting. There are some new opportunities set up by libraries in the Twin Ports for folks to learn more about their history.

On September 18th, the Duluth Library will be hosting a Family History Research event at 6:00 p.m. The event is in collaboration with the Twin Ports Genealogical Society.

On Thursday the 21st, the Superior Library will begin a four-part class series on Genealogy. The first class will start by 10:30 a.m.

In an interview with WDIO, Steph Myers the Adult Services Supervisor for Duluth Library said the event will provide free opportunity for locals to trace back their family history.

“Honestly, I think it’s a little bit addictive. You start to uncover things about your family and then you find out something else, which then pushes you to want to find out one more thing. And before you know it, you’ve uncovered an entire family tree and lots of family stories.”

Steph spoke on how the library has been helping people to connect with their ancestors.

“Some of our best stories come from library users who have found information about their families. In many cases, our library team has helped them navigate some of the information and find those little gems. We get calls and emails from all over the world. I know I have helped someone from Spain. We’ve had others help people from Sweden and Finland. Duluth used to be a place where people would come for immigration purposes and so there’s just a lot of information here.”

WDIO also spoke to Marie Mattson, the instructor for the Superior Library Genealogy class on what she will be teaching.

“So, the first one is I’m going to talk about what genealogy is and mistakes to avoid when doing your own genealogy things. The second one is family search. The family search is a great big website with a lot of great sources including the U.S. Census. The third one we’re going to talk about is DNA, the different types of DNA you can use. And how to track down some of the people that aren’t showing up in records that you would otherwise be using. The fourth one is using the family Search wiki research”.