Ah, the Rabbit Holes I Fall Down...

Or is it Bunny Trails I follow?

Did you know that you can chat with a librarian and ask us anything, 24x7? There is a global network of librarians that are connected and will answer reference questions at any time. Just go to any library’s website to find the little pop-up that says, “Ask Us 24x7” and ask away! One fun thing to do might be to try it in the middle of the night and see what librarian answers on the other side of the world! And tell them I said, Happy Library Worker’s Day!

I do our chat on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at 8am Texas time, so I most often get to chat with patrons from Minnesota, Denver and London. Each library provides reference information, sample login accounts and FAQs for us to use to answer questions about their library system. But, if its an account question or has to do with physical items, we usually have to create a ticket for their librarians to follow up.

Regular research questions I can usually answer. Today, I found some neat information. A young student was working on a presentation about Rosa’s Park’s bus, and I found out that The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation did a wonderful short piece on it in 2014. (And now I need to watch all 10 seasons of this show!)

I did not know that the actual bus has been preserved. What a historic artifact!

Here is the video: The Rosa Parks Bus on Henry Ford's Innovation Nation

Which led me to ask, “Where is the bus today?” and here it is: The Henry Ford Museum.

And what a wonderful website they have for all kinds of research!

They even have created pdfs on how to care for your own artifacts. Oh, my heart. Thanks conservation staff!

Next, check out the finding aids and just browse a while. Included in their collections are MANY sets of family records. Does anyone else randomly browse manuscript collections online and put in family names? :) For instance, look at this:

What? 1813 letters? An 1805 land deed? Any Greene’s out there reading this?

Why would the family papers from a Rhode Island family be in Dearborn, Michigan? Because that is how it rolls when looking for manuscript collections. They.could.be.anywhere. And new collections show up all time, because everybody everywhere is racing to digitize records! Repeat after me, “I WILL keep searching”. All part of being a good ancestor, yall.

And how do you see these records if they are not digitized? ASK. If its just a few pages, they will likely gladly scan them for you. Worse case if they can’t or won’t scan them, ask them to snap a few photos and text it to you. Get creative. Doesn’t hurt to ask!

Go down the rabbit holes, poke around the websites, find the records, even read about other people’s families. All is good.

Have fun roundin’ up your family history today!