Family Heritage Festival

Celebrate the 11th Annual Family Heritage Festival on Saturday, September 27, 2025 at the John F. Germany Public Library with library staff and genealogy experts.

Events

  • The Dearly Departed: Conversations on Historic Cemeteries and Death Records with Erin Kimmerle

    11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

    Join us for a conversation with Erin H. Kimmerle, Ph.D. who will be speaking about her book, We Carry Their Bones, which investigates of the notorious Dozier Boys School — the true story behind the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Nickel Boys — and the contentious process to exhume the graves of the boys buried there in order to reunite them with their families.

    Register

  • Bringing Out Your Dead with Selena Martinez

    2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

    This program will show how death records such as obituaries, funeral home records, and cemeteries can be used to show the history of an area. It will also show you how these records can put meat on the bones of our ancestors.

    Register

A light lunch will be served between the two presentations by the Friends of the John F. Germany Library.

Watch Recordings from Past Family Heritage Fests

2022 Playlist

2021 Playlist

Get Started Researching Your Family Tree

  • Access Genealogy 🠚 African American Genealogy

    Provides a variety of links for conducting African American research, including archives, societies, biographies, church records, etc.

  • ACPL Genealogy Center 🠚 African American

    Visit the African American Gateway page to explore ancestry by U.S. State, U.S. Regions, other countries, and subject. The list of links per page is extensive.

  • International African American Museum Center for Family History 🠚 African American

    Provides access to marriage records, obituary and funeral programs, bible records, and more.

  • Access Genealogy 🠚 Native American

    This site assists the novice genealogist with approaches to researching ancestors. Links to essential materials are included, as well as free Native American databases.

  • ACPL Genealogy Center 🠚 Native American

    This website offers tips for beginning your research. Links are provided for records of different tribes, as well as indexes.

  • Cuban Genealogy Club of Miami, Fl, Inc. 🠚 Cuban Genealogy

    Resources include family trees, passenger lists (searchable by passenger name and ships), Cuban church records, etc.. They also provide an extensive list of other links for Hispanic American genealogy and for other countries (Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, etc.).

  • American Jewish Historical Society 🠚 Jewish

    “Established in 1892, the American Jewish History Society provides access to more than 30 million documents and 50,000 books, photographs, art and artifacts that reflect the history of the Jewish presence in the United States from 1654 to the present.”

  • Mexican War Soldiers & Sailors Database

    This site contains over 89,000 records of soldiers who served in the two-year war – includes soldiers from both side of the war, born in U.S., Mexico, Canada, and beyond.

  • Harvard Library 🠚 Immigration Records, 1789 – 1930

    “This digital collection of historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums documents voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the start of the Great Depression.” Items totaling more than 11,000 include both images and books/documents.

  • Ellis Island Foundation 🠚 Immigration Records

    The Passenger Search database allows you to look for family members who arrived at the Port of New York from 1820 to 1957. Totaling almost 65 million passenger records and ship manifests, researchers can unearth of variety of information collected at debarkation points.

  • Genealogy Indexer 🠚 Central & East European Records

    Contains digitized pages of historical directories, yizkor books, military lists, personal histories, and more.

  • Routes to Roots Foundation 🠚 Jewish Records

    Provides articles and essays, archive contacts, maps, etc. for Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova.

  • Digitalarkivet 🠚 Norwegian Archives

    Free to use, researchers can view photographs, read full text printouts, watch videos, and listen to digitized recordings.

  • Geneteka 🠚 Polish Records

    Search birth, marriage, and death records by province and parish – with or without a name.

  • Hungaricana 🠚 Hungarian Records

    Museums and libraries throughout Hungary have worked together to provide centralized access to databases, records, documents, images, historical maps, etc.

  • Ancestors Portal 🠚 Italian Records

    “Antenati Portal was created to make available online the enormous documentary heritage of registry and genealogical interest – in particular, acts of civil status, the conscription lists and matricular roles – existing in the Italian State Archives, which is indispensable for conducting research on family and individual history, but also of great interest for historical, genealogical, demographic and social science research.”

  • WieWasWie 🠚 Dutch Records

    Offers a database of more than 220 million people.